


White Moves First

by far2addicted



Series: Spectral Eyes [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Because I'm incapable of writing in canon, Like I didn't even think Hinata/Konohamaru was a thing until it happened but apparently it is, Lots of plot, M/M, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH IS FOR CHARACTERS BEING GHOSTS, NO ONE DIES IN THIS STORY, Neji Lives, Political Intrigue, Rare Pairings, Repost of an old story from another site, Rewrite, Sequel, unwanted arranged marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:43:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 124,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far2addicted/pseuds/far2addicted
Summary: Neji thought he had left a certain irritating phantom behind him in Konoha when he left for his home again, but sometimes destiny has a way of following us, even when it should be impossible. As he must face his burgeoning relationship with Shikamaru head on, he also has to deal with his younger cousin Hinata and the expectations placed in front of them by their family while balancing his double life as a jazz musician.And if that wasn't already enough, he has to figure out what to do about the growing Akatsuki threat he and Sasuke left at large after their last confrontation.******************Sequel to Spectral Eyes. Reposted from FF.net. Edited and reworked but not rewritten. This story is completed and will upload every day until complete.





	1. Escape and Hunger

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm so glad you joined the party! If this is your first time here, great! If not, I hope you keep enjoying! 
> 
> This is a sequel Spectral Eyes! It probably won't make much sense without having read it first, so I suggest you go back and read it before reading this! I mean, I'm not making you so you do you and all that jazz, but there's a lot of definitions and ghosty things and stuff that probably won't make that much sense to you. Because there's ghosts. A lot of ghosts. Did I mention that yet? 
> 
> Anyway, onwards to the good stuff! Happy reading everyone!

⚞⚟

 

Itachi’s heartbeat thundered in his chest as Kisame pulled him down the hallway at a leisurely pace, paying no mind to the intercoms placed at regular intervals on the walls blasting out the warning for a code silver: a suicide attempt. His palm was sweaty in Kisame’s grasp, even though the bandage was wrapped securely around it, slicking up his hand as he fought to keep his stride even and his face impassive. Even though the alarm was blaring loudly around them and he heard the footsteps of several people running past him down the hallway, they kept walking calmly, without hurry. During their planning, they had decided a calm pace was less likely to look suspicious than running pell-mell down the hallway and attracting the attention of everyone they passed. It was a calculated risk, but the plan they’d decided on counted on their deception buying them just enough time to make it out of the psychiatric ward before the doctors discovered Itachi was missing and the ward went on lockdown. 

“How close are we?” Itachi asked in a low voice, quiet enough that only Kisame would be able to hear it over the alarms. 

“Almost there,” Kisame answered in an equally low voice, his hand tightening around Itachi’s briefly. “Just a few more steps, and we’ll be through the doors of this ward and into the general hospital.” 

A sharp intake of breath shocked Itachi’s lungs with the smell of disinfectant and the sweat it tried to cover up. He was almost out, almost free; it was almost too good to be true. It  _ was _ too good to be true; it was just too  _ easy _ . Something should have happened by now to make their plan go awry. And if it hadn’t yet, it would soon. 

Sure enough, Itachi heard Kisame give a quiet curse and abruptly start to tug him in a different direction. “What is it?” Itachi hissed under his breath, feeling his heartbeat skip in trepidation. 

“There’s too many people; we won’t be able to make it through,” Kisame hissed back just as quietly, steering him down another hallway. “We’ll have to take the side elevator down.” 

Itachi was about to ask how that would affect their plan as a whole, but stopped himself just in time. Kisame had been born and raised in an environment conducive to activities like this; it would be best for Itachi to just let him think it through himself. 

“This is the elevator,” Kisame said eventually, which was really only a few seconds later but felt like much longer. He let go of Itachi’s hand in order to punch some buttons on the elevator control panel. “We’re almost there; just a few more seconds-” 

_ There is no way we can be this lucky- _

“Hey! You there! What are you going?” 

_ Called it. _

His mind racing, Itachi turned around and fixed his nonexistent gaze above the footsteps of their assailant. “What do you want? He asked coldly, silently begging Kisame to follow his lead. 

Luckily, the man stopped at the sound of Itachi’s voice several paces away, giving Kisame a little more time to catch onto his plan. “Why are you leaving that way?” 

“Why do I have to leave at all?” Itachi bluffed, crossing his arms over his chest and pointing his nose in the air. “I don’t see why I should have to cut my visit - my  _ scheduled _ visit - short because some damn alarm goes off for some lunatic I’m not even here to see! The nerve of this hospital, I tell you!” 

A heavy hand settled on Itachi’s shoulder as he heard the elevator doors sliding open behind them. “Sir, I’ve already explained this to you,” Kisame said reproachfully, and Itachi’s heart leapt a little in relief. “Our policy clearly requires that all non-employees be evacuated from the facility during an emergency. You have to leave.” 

Raising his noise even further into the air, Itachi snapped, “Your employers  _ will _ be hearing about this!” 

“I don’t doubt it.” Kisame’s grip tightened on Itachi’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but could you let us go? I’d like to escort him out, and the front entrance is blocked.” 

“Why do you have to escort him out?” The voice asked, sounding even more suspicious than before, and Itachi’s heart reflexively jumped into his throat. 

“Exactly!” He snapped even more forcefully to cover up his nervousness, shaking Kisame’s hand off his shoulder. “I don’t understand why this monkey feels the need to escort me all the way out of the ward just because I threatened not to leave when he told me to! Unbelievable! This is an invasion of privacy!”

“Ah.” The voice grew smug, satisfied with Itachi’s answer. “I see. Carry on.” 

“What?!” Itachi gasped with mock fury. “I thought you were going to stop him, I thought-” 

“I’ll see to it that your visit gets rescheduled.” Kisame grabbed Itachi’s arm and pulled him backwards into the elevator. “Thanks for your assistance.”

“No problem. Carry on.” 

“Unhand me, you wretch!” 

_ SCREECH!!!!!  _ “CODE BLUE!!! CODE BLUE!!! WE HAVE AN INMATE LOOSE IN THE WARD!!! LOCKDOWN THE UNIT!!! I REPEAT, CODE BLUE!!! LOCKDOWN THE-”

_ Click. _

The elevator doors slid shut. 

Tinney elevator music, a soft jazz version of a song Itachi didn’t recognize was playing in the elevator, a stark contrast to the blaring code blue alarm. A strange mixture of nervousness and relief bubbled up in Itachi’s chest, forcing an almost hysterical chuckle up though his mouth that mixed with the soft-shoe-like music. Beside him, he heard an answering nervous laugh, and Kisame’s hand grasping his arm tightened slightly. 

“Holy shit, I can’t believe that actually worked.” 

“You’re telling me?” Kisame gave another shaky laugh. “I can’t believe you managed to talk us out of that. That was  _ brilliant. _ ” 

Itachi allowed himself a small moment to bask in the praise. “Thank you. Who was that, anyway?” 

“You didn’t recognize him?” Kisame’s voice was incredulous. 

“No.” Itachi frowned in annoyance. “I’m  _ blind _ , remember?”

“Sorry, but I thought you might recognize his voice. That was one of the more high-ranking doctors, the doctor in charge of all patients recognized as high risk for self harm. Ergo, he used to be your main doctor.” 

A bolt of pure fear shot though Itachi, and he felt his legs start to shake. “Wh- what!?! How did he not recognize me?” 

“Well, you do look very different in those clothes and without your bandage. I’d have a hard time recognizing you myself, if I didn’t know it was you. Besides, people see what they expect to see. I doubt he’d ever suspect that the man he used to sedate into unconsciousness could be someone like you are now.” Kisame’s grip on Itachi’s arm loosened slightly, changing position before tightening again, signaling that their floor was close. “Are you ready to run?” 

“As I’ll ever be.” 

“Good. We’re going straight, then a hard left, down some stairs almost immediately, then out a window. There’ll be someone there to catch you.” 

Itachi was about to nod his agreement when a single word in Kisame’s statement caught his attention. “Wait, a window!? We’re breaking out through a window!?” 

“Did you expect we’d just waltz out through the front door?”  _ Ding! _ “Don’t question it- just run!” 

Itachi felt a rush of fresher air on his face as the elevator doors opened, then a harsh tug on his arm as Kisame pulled him forward and they started running. Here, too, an alarm was going off, but it was softer, less grating, simply informing the doctors on this floor that another floor was experiencing an issue. So far, it appeared that the news of their breakout hadn’t been passed down to the lower levels yet - perhaps they hadn’t yet realized that they’d made it off the floor for the psychiatric ward before the code blue alarm had sounded and the lockdown initiated - but that probably wouldn’t last much longer. 

“Left!” The sudden order came with a violent yank on Itachi’s arm, pulling him to the left and causing him to half-stumble, half-fall down a short set of steps. 

“A little more warning might have been nice,” he remarked dryly as he righted himself and kept running. 

“Sorry.” Kisame came to an abrupt stop, causing Itachi to run into him. “For that, too. Here’s our exit.” 

“A door?” Itachi asked hopefully, but his hopes were dashed by Kisame’s next words. 

“Window.” 

“This was not part of the plan I agreed to!” 

“Last minute change.” 

“What floor are we on?” 

“The second.” 

“The second- Kisame, you are not throwing me out a second story window!” 

“Oh, yes I am.” There was a strange sound, as if Kisame was dragging something heavy across the floor. “If you want to get out of here, I am.” 

Without warning, Itachi heard a screech and felt a rush of true fresh air, as if something heavy had been lifted off the floor and thrown, then the sound of shattering glass and the blaring of an alarm. 

“Kisame!” Itachi shouted to be heard over the alarm, pressing his hands over his ears. “What did you do?!” 

“Created an escape route.” A note of warning crept into Kisame’s voice. “You agreed to this plan, Itachi!” 

“That was before I knew it included throwing me out a second story window!” 

“Itachi!” Kisame grabbed Itachi’s shoulder and gave him a hard shake. “We have less than thirty seconds before security pinpoints our location and comes rushing down that corridor-” 

“Because you broke the window!”

“-and unless you want to go back and be placed under even tighter security than before, we jump  _ now _ !” Abruptly, Kisame’s voice and hands softened. “Itachi, there’s someone outside waiting for us. Don’t you trust me?” 

The words gave Itachi pause. His trust, both the trust he gave and the trust he received had been put through a grueling process that morning. It wasn’t fair that Kisame knew his weak points. 

“Of course I trust you,” he said quietly, not sure if Kisame could hear him over the alarm but knowing that he could predict his answer anyway. 

“You, there! Stop right there!” 

The shout echoed down the hallway, galvanizing the pair into action. Kisame, not wasting time waiting for his consent, pushed Itachi toward the shattered window - which, judging by the size of the rush of wind on his face, was a large ceiling-high glass wall - then shoved him out the window and into the open air. 

The world seemed to freeze around Itachi. His fingers searched for something, anything to grasp onto, his ears tried and failed to hear anything but the rush of moving air, his senses of taste and smell were useless in gathering any meaningful information about his surroundings - he was, completely and utterly, blind, and truly understanding for the first time in his life how vulnerable that made him. Without his sight and cut off from his other methods of data collection, he was unable to tell anything about his surroundings, from complex things like the nature of the sky above him to the simple fact of how far away he was from the ground. And it terrified him. 

For a second longer, Itachi felt like he was suspended in the black expanse of nothing that stretched out indefinitely on all sides of him, then gravity took hold of him and pulled him down, down, down into the maw of darkness. He wanted to scream, but pure, abject terror and the force of rushing air stopped the function of his lungs. The fall seemed to last for a lifetime, or perhaps an eternity, though Itachi knew it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before he felt the rough sting of a net bite into his flesh and his descent abruptly slowed.

The sunglasses precariously perched on Itachi’s nose fell off and skittered out of his limited range of perception, leading to a different and altogether more terrifying sort of panic sending a shot of pure adrenaline into his bloodstream. Curling up on himself, he slammed the heels of his palms over his empty eye sockets as he felt multiple pairs of hands pulling him from the net, terrified that their owners had seen his face and knowing by the hesitating way they touched him that they had. Wincing, he tried to pull himself away from the grasping hands that had helped him up, but was foiled by a set of arms stronger than he was expecting. 

“Don’t be worried,” a voice said startlingly close to his ear, causing Itachi to jump. “Boss Kisame told us what to expect.” 

_ Boss Kisame? _ It felt strange to hear him referred to as that, but Itachi supposed he should have predicted it; Kisame had agreed to go back to his father’s - now his - gang in order to escape the rival gang after him and get Itachi out of the hospital. 

Grunts of pain and the sound of a body collapsing to the floor echoed out the window Kisame had just thrown Itachi out of, followed by the sound of a large body leaping from the window and landing solidly next to Itachi. 

“How are you?” Kisame asked, laying a hand on Itachi’s shoulder. “They caught you alright?” 

“Never… Never…” Itachi stuttered, his legs shaking so hard, his knees weakened and collapsed, leaving him to cling weakly to Kisame’s frame. “Never do that to me again! I thought… I thought…” 

Kisame tightened his grip reassuringly on Itachi’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Itachi. I’m sorry; I won’t do it again. But you’re safe now, and that’s all that matters.” 

“I wouldn’t go making those kinds of claims just yet,” a voice called from several paces away, followed by the cough of an engine starting. “We need to get out of the city first.” 

Shouting abruptly erupted from the window Itachi and Kisame had just escaped from, and Itachi felt Kisame tense beside him as the sound of sirens began to wail in the distance. 

“You’re right, and I think that’s our cue to leave.” Kisame joked tensely, then pushed Itachi towards the purring engine. “Get in the car.” 

The sound of a car door opening close in front of him made Itachi jump slightly, but the steady pressure of Kisame’s hand at the small of his back propelled him forward. He ducked his head instinctively as he entered the car to avoid knocking the top of his skull against the metal frame, his body taking over and performing the task it had performed thousands of times already - before he had lost his eyes - without the aid of his sight. 

As soon as he was seated in the car, Itachi heard the door slam shut behind him, then the driver’s seat door open quickly and just as quickly close. Two answering slams were heard from the passenger side door and the door across from Itachi’s seat, and as soon as the last one shook the frame of the car, the driver slammed the car into drive and took off with a squeal of tires on the pavement before any of them even got the chance to buckle their seatbelts. 

Itachi was thrown against the back of his seat by the force of the acceleration before being abruptly jerked forward by a reversal in said acceleration, then thrown backwards again and to the side as the car took a sharp turn. A large, gentle hand Itachi recognized as Kisame’s grabbed his shoulder and held him steady while his other hand fastened his seatbelt, providing him some stability in the wildly jerking car that felt like it was weaving through rush hour traffic at a daring pace. He didn’t realize his hands were shaking until Kisame grasped both of them in his large hands. 

“Itachi?” 

Itachi didn’t respond; he was too busy _ experiencing _ the things around him. When they had been escaping, he hadn’t had time to just listen and feel the things surrounding him, but now that they were in the car, rocketing away from the horrid hospital, it finally hit Itachi: he was free. He wouldn’t ever have to go back to his padded room with the stale air and the bland food and the ever-present egocentric doctors. Instead, he was here, with Kisame, and he was free. He pulled one hand from Kisame’s grasp and trailed it down the seat in front of him, feeling the exquisite texture of the rough, patterned leather on his fingertips, bereft of feeling anything except clinical hospital surfaces in years. 

“Itachi?” There was a slightly higher note of urgency in Kisame’s voice, and Itachi felt the large man grab his face and force him to turn toward him. “Are you… okay?” 

Itachi sucked in a deep breath, his throat catching. He reached up and mirrored Kisame’s movement, touching the other man on the cheek. 

“I… I’m fine,” he finally managed to say, his heart beating faster than normal, free from the constraints of the heart rate monitor. “I’m more than fine… Kisame, I’m free! I just… I just…” The breath in his lungs caught again. “It’s just… at times like these… I wish I still possessed the ability to cry.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Sasuke collapsed on his bed with a silly grin on his face, happier than he’d been in- well, almost a decade. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his conscious, a weight in the shape of the grudge he’d held against his brother since the incident when he’d been ten years old. His grip tightened on his phone in his hand, and for a moment he was almost tempted to call someone and tell them the good news - Neji, maybe, or Sakura. He just couldn’t believe how  _ easy _ it had been once he’d made up his mind to do it. Sure, seeing Itachi again had been hard at first, but the amazing feeling of love and brotherhood he’d gotten when his brother had kissed his forehead had more than made up for all the years of separation, when Itachi had been kept under lock and key in the psychiatric division of their father’s hospital and Sasuke had never bothered - or even felt the desire - to go visit him. His only regret was that he hadn’t done it sooner. 

A few rooms over, Sasuke heard the phone ring and noticed his father picking it up, but otherwise paid the ensuing discussion little mind. He was in too good a mood to let his father spoil it. With a contented sigh, he rolled onto his side and hugged a pillow to his stomach. Today was an awesome day, and nothing could change that. He’d been waiting far too long. 

“WHAT?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, HE’S GONE? YOU IMBECILES! WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M PAYING YOU FOR?!?!” 

Sighing, Sasuke rolled over onto his other side, putting his back to the door, and tried to focus on his memories of the afternoon instead of the ruckus in the next room. He’d been forced to leave earlier than he’d have liked too because he had scheduled a meeting with his college advisor that he couldn’t miss, but one of the last things he’d said to Itachi before he left had been a promise to come back the next day and see him again. Now that they’d reconnected, Sasuke promised himself that he would try and visit his brother as often as he could; every day, if possible. The giddy smile crept back onto his face, and Sasuke sighed contentedly and pulled his pillow closer to his body. He couldn’t wait to go back and see his brother again. He’d noticed a chessboard with a half-completed game sitting on a table in the room, most likely between Itachi and that nurse that had been with him; perhaps Sasuke could coax him into a game as well, though maybe not one as intense as chess. This summer had given him mixed feelings about that particular game. 

Maybe… Checkers? Connect 4? 

Sasuke’s thoughts were cut off by his bedroom door exploding inward, allowing the fiercest aura of anger Sasuke had ever felt from his father. He barely had time to leap off the bed and turn to face his father before Fugaku Uchiha was in his face, grasping his collar so tightly it almost cut off his breath. 

“Where is he?!?” 

“Get… off… me!” Sasuke gave a heave and threw off his father, then stared at him in horror. He sprawled on the floor, but quickly stood up again, his chest heaving in exertion from his emotions. He’d never seen Fugaku like this before, not even the night eight years ago when Itachi’s mind had snapped and he’d attacked Sasuke. “What is your problem?” 

“I know you know where he is!” Fugaku almost screeched, his finger pointing accusingly at Sasuke. “Why else would you have asked to see him? Now, after all this time? Tell me where he is!!!!” 

“WHO?!?” Sasuke roared right back, his father’s hot anger sparking his own. “Don’t play the damn pronoun game with me! What is going on?” 

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know!” Fugaku grabbed Sasuke’s shirt by the shoulders and lifted him several inches off the floor. Sasuke would have been impressed by his aging father’s strength if he hadn’t been too full of conflicting anger and confusion. “Itachi escaped the hospital today, and I know you know where he is!” 

The world around Sasuke suddenly went white - not visually, but auditorily. Fugaku’s face swam in his vision, his mouth still moving furiously, but all Sasuke could hear was a quiet white buzz. His ears only started working again when his numb lips forced themselves to form a coherent thought, barely picking up his own words. 

“Itachi… Itachi’s gone?” 

“That’s what I said!” Fugaku roared impatiently, letting go of Sasuke’s collar and letting his numb form slump to the ground, only kept from becoming completely horizontal by the wall at his back. “You were the last person to see him today, which means you must be the person who helped him escape! Now, tell me: WHERE IS HE?!?!?!”

But the second part of Fugaku’s words were lost before they found Sasuke’s ears, leaving him with only the realization that his brother was gone and the feeling of betrayal that realization caused. Looking back at his memories of the previous afternoon, Sasuke suddenly found new meaning in tiny details he’d noticed but dismissed: the almost imperceptible catch in Itachi’s voice when he had asked to “look at” Sasuke, the grimace on his face that had disappeared as soon as it had appeared when Sasuke had asked if he could visit again the next day, the nurse’s suspicious attitude, bordering on nervous. All the signs had been there; why hadn’t Sasuke realized it before? 

Suddenly, Fugaku’s face melted and ran in front of Sasuke, and he blinked in surprise, reaching a hand up to touch his cheek and discovering that it was wet. 

_ I’m… crying? _

A choked sob made its way up through Sasuke’s throat, and he covered his mouth, partly in surprise and partly to keep any further sobs from escaping. Tears fell, thick and fast, down his cheeks and onto his shirt collar, but he didn’t even try to wipe them away. 

_ Why… Why? Why did you leave me? Didn’t you say you missed me? Didn’t you say you  _ loved _ me? Why did you go?  _

“Well, either you’re a very skilled actor, or you don’t know where he is… either…” Fugaku’s voice broke off as well as he fell to his knees in front of Sasuke and pulled him into a hug. At first, Sasuke was frozen, unsure what to do, but when he felt the dampness of his father’s tears against his neck, he hugged him back. 

“Sasuke…” Fugaku sobbed. “He’s gone… my baby boy is gone…” 

“I know,” Sasuke whispered back, awkwardly patting circles on his father’s back that he couldn’t see because his eyes were still filled with tears. “I… I miss him too.” 

They sat in companionable misery for a while, the only sound in the room the echo of their rough breathing. After several minutes had passed, Fugaku suddenly pulled back from Sasuke and stood up, turning away so his son couldn’t see his tearstained face. 

“I have to…” he started gruffly, then trailed off. “Good night, Sasuke. Sorry about… well, good night.” 

He left before Sasuke had a chance to answer. He sat still against the wall for a few more seconds before angrily swiping a hand across his eyes and staggering to his feet. He had too many emotions swirling inside him to make sense of any of them. He needed to talk to someone, and not his father. His searching hands found his phone, and he was scrolling through his contacts before he realized what he was doing. 

 

⚞⚟

 

When Neji stepped into his house, the first thing he did was stride towards his bedroom and open the door with an excess of force, his gaze settling on the chessboard in the center of the floor. As he had suspected, the setup of the black and white pieces on the board were exactly the same as he had left them, with the exception of a single black pawn, which had been moved forward a single space. His hands clenched into fists for a second, then Neji took a deep breath and unclenched them as he let the air escape his lungs. 

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, striding forward to sit behind the white side of the chessboard. Very deliberately, he picked up one of his knights and moved it past his current line of defense, into the no-man’s-land in the center of the board, then settled down to wait, as he had done every day for the past week. 

The first day Neji had gotten back to Seattle, he had returned to his apartment to find the familiar chessboard witting in the middle of his bedroom floor, accompanied only by a simple instruction on a sheet of paper:  _ White Moves First _ . So, Neji had made the first move and waited for his opponent to show up so they could play, or perhaps finish another game they’d started. But, to his surprise, the seconds he spent waiting alone at the chessboard quickly stretched into minutes and then almost an hour before he’d stood up angrily, irritated at himself for believing in something impossible, and went to bed, too exhausted from the day’s journey and the night’s activities to do anything but sleep. When he’d awoken the next morning, he’d blearily gotten up and dressed, accidentally kicking the chessboard on his way and not caring enough to pick it up, and gone to see his uncle and Hinata’s father, Hiashi Hyuuga, to explain his long leave of absence. He hadn’t given the chessboard a thought the entire day, but when he came back to his apartment in the evening, he found that the board had been righted and a black pawn had been moved forward to mirror his own pawn. Instantly, Neji’s intrigue had been piqued again, and he had sat down in front of the chessboard and made another move, only to have been stood up a second time. 

This pattern had continued for the past week, and Neji knew that it would likely continue today, no matter how long he waited beside the chessboard. With a sigh, he stood up and shuffled from his bedroom to the bathroom. A good, warm shower would be just the thing to clear that ghost off his mind and get himself into a better mood. 

Unfortunately, the shower didn’t help as much as he’d anticipated, and half an hour later Neji stood in front of the bathroom mirror wearing a light blue bathrobe and dragging a brush through his long hair, trying to get out the snarls and avoid thinking of the chessboard currently sitting in the middle of his bedroom floor. 

_ I’m going to have to get a haircut soon, _ he thought morosely, staring at reflection in the mirror as his brush caught in a snarl.  _ Or at least get the edges trimmed. I’m starting to get split ends. _

With a sigh, Neji brushed through the last snarl in his hair and placed the brush down, then toweled the remaining moisture from his hair and went back to his room. Going to his dresser, he found a set of clothes more suited to sleeping in and quickly changed into them, intending to go straight to bed so he could get up early the next morning and get all his work done quickly so he could go to rehearsal for the jazz orchestra. They had another gig they had to play at in a few days, and Neji didn’t want to mess up like he had at the last one. No, this time he would be perfect. 

Yawning, Neji moved toward his bed, passing by the abandoned chessboard on the floor without giving more than a glance to the arrangement of black and white pieces he had already memorized before turning on the bedside lamp and reaching over to turn off the overhead light-

And abruptly snapped his head back to look at the chessboard as the configuration of pieces hit him. 

The new configuration of pieces. 

Neji immediately sank down on his knees in front of the chessboard, looking at the inconspicuous bishop, three spaces away from where it had been when Neji had gone in for the shower, and in a direct line to capture the his king. As Neji looked closer, he noticed a small scrap of paper tucked under the bishop. On it was a single word: 

_ Check.  _

An unnamable, unmistakable feeling filled Neji then, the same feeling he felt when he had first entered his room a week ago and seen the chessboard. That damn phantom had been here, in his room, while Neji had been a measly room away! Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t he let Neji know he was here? With a shaking hand, he picked up his queen and captured the bishop, bringing himself out of check. 

Perhaps he was purposefully coming only when Neji was out of the room. Why, though? What could he stand to gain by keeping his distance? It’s not like he had ever tried to keep his distance before. 

A thought suddenly struck Neji, and he shot up to his feet. If he was only coming when Neji wasn’t in the room, yet had managed to come in such a small window as the time Neji had spent in the shower, he must have some way of observing the room and whether or not Neji was inside it. That meant that he had to be close by, or at least close enough to feel his presence. Neji’s heartbeat started pounding a little louder, and he felt a grin creep across his face. 

Perhaps he should test out the limits of that observation. That might be a fun game. 

Neji stood abruptly, walking out of his room and shutting the door firmly behind him before continuing on to the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of water. He allowed a few seconds to elapse before he activated his eyes with a quiet whisper. 

“ _ Byakugan.”  _

Instantly, Neji’s vision shifted from the mortal plane to the immortal one, where swirls and eddies of spectral energy fluctuated all around him in a dizzying array of colors, including some invisible to the mortal eye. Careful not to focus his concentration in the bedroom and alert his prey of his observation, Neji allowed his range of senses to expand until he felt a warm, dark aura start to slip into his bedroom. Slowly, so as not to startle the stealthy presence, Neji deactivated his eyes and took a drink from his glass, giving the presence a few more seconds to get further into the room before placing his water on the counter and running back to his bedroom as quickly as he dared. He threw open the door, catching sight of a ghostly figure in a tattered army coat crouching over the chessboard, his hand still resting on top of the piece he’d moved. 

The phantom stayed motionless for half a second before he looked up, his gaze catching Neji’s and driving the breath from his lungs. They stared at each other in frozen silence for a moment, the phantom’s gaze giving nothing away, before he suddenly stiffened and turned to flee, his coat flaring out behind him as he move swiftly to the window. Neji desperately reached out to grab the fluttering end of the coat, but his fingers passed through it as his prey passed out of reach and made it to the window. He paused almost unnoticeably at the window, as if suddenly doubting his decision to disappear, but the moment was gone as soon as it had come, leaving Neji to wonder if he had only imagined it and grasp desperately at the last straw he could think of. 

“Wait, Shikamaru!” 

He almost didn’t expected it to work, but Shikamaru paused at the window, the broad shoulders of his death’s form silently hunched as if in protest. Neji felt his heart give a jump at the sight; unlike Shikamaru’s shadows, he didn’t have a definitive way to pin the other in place, but he might be able to forge those chains with words instead of something physical. 

“...You were right.” 

That drew Shikamaru’s interest enough for him to turn around and pierce Neji with that deceptively blank gaze, though his stance still broadcast wariness. “About what?” 

Shaking his head, Neji let out a small laugh. “I did want to be the one to walk away.”  _ And I won’t let you take that from me now. _

Shikamaru’s eyes gleamed in mounting interest. “Of course I was right. I spent two weeks doing nothing but trying to figure out what make you tick, Neji. There was no way I’d miss an obvious motive like that.” 

“Oh, really? Then why did I do it?” Neji smirked ever so slightly. “Be careful not to project this time.” 

“I won’t project,” Shikamaru said quietly, looking like he wanted to shift his gaze away from Neji but was unable to find the courage to do so. “Because you wanted to gain - no, regain - control over a situation you’d been floundering in for the better part of two weeks. Because you desperately needed to get a handle on yourself before you came back here. Because there’s something here that you’re afraid of.” 

“Excellent deduction.” Without breaking eye contact, Neji deliberately leaned down and moved a chess piece forward. “Care to hazard a guess as to what?” 

Shikamaru’s gaze flicked once, very briefly, down to the chessboard before his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. He flicked a single finger, and a piece slid across the chessboard. “It’s something to do with your family’s rules, isn’t it.” 

“Yes… and no.” Neji pushed another piece forward without looking away from Shikamaru. 

“Then their expectations?” Shikamaru came a little closer, again pushing a piece forward with nothing but his will. 

“You’re getting warmer.” 

His head tilted to the side, eyes narrowing even further. “It also concerns you little cousin, doesn't it?” 

“Bingo.” Neji pushed another piece forward. “I’d like not to get into specifics, though.”

Almost as if he wasn’t aware of his own motion, Shikamaru glided slightly forward again. “And why not?” 

“Well, for one, it would ruin the suspense of the story. Who ever heard of a major plot point being revealed in the first chapter?” Neji glanced down at the board and saw that another black piece had been moved forward, even though Shikamaru had made no obvious movement to change its position, so he followed it with a move of his own. “Besides, it wouldn’t be as fun for you if I just told you. I know you want to figure it out.” 

“Brilliant deflection, Neji.” Shikamaru finally stood upright and fully faced Neji, his toes pointing directly to the chessboard. “If I didn’t know better, I would almost think you hadn’t planned it in advance.” 

“Perhaps I’m getting better playing your game,” Neji challenged, the tempo of his heartbeat ratcheting up a notch. “You’d better watch yourself. Soon I’ll be beating you at your own game.” 

“Hm.” For a moment, amusement flashed in Shikamaru’s eyes. “Somehow, I doubt it.” He leaned down and touched the head of a knight, then swiftly moved it in the traditional L-shaped pattern, capturing the bishop on the ending square. “Checkmate.” 

“Geeze.” Neji shook his head slightly in disbelief. “I guess that last win really was just a fluke.” 

“I think you mean, ‘that one win’, considering it was only once that you actually beat me.” Shikamaru stood up, bringing himself nose to nose with Neji. His dark eyes gleamed in the wan light of the single lamp. 

Neji felt his throat go dry and his heartbeat pound in anticipation, and he swallowed reflexively, leaning a little over the chessboard. “Not unless I change the rules on you.” 

A smile stole softly across Shikamaru’s face. “What rules?” 

Neji barely had time to draw in a surprised breath, his eyes widening in shock, before Shikamaru leaned over the board and seized the back of his head, closing the distance between them until it was nonexistent. Neji felt, rather than saw, the small shadow that escaped from Shikamaru’s grasp and spread across both their bodies from the points of their contact, initiating a blazing trail of heat as it went. The fabric of Shikamaru’s army coat was rough and worn, tattered from both action and long periods of inaction, and Neji found himself desperately clutching its folds as if they were a lifeline. 

“What, not going to push me away this time?” Shikamaru murmured gently after pulling back slightly, resting his forehead against Neji’s brow. 

“I’m past that,” Neji breathed back, his hand resting on Shikamaru’s shoulder and his thumb exploring the divit between his neck and collarbone. “I’ve had the past week to work my head around it, remember?” 

“Excellent, because I’d hate to have to go through that fiasco again. Way too troublesome.” 

A small smirk decorating his face, Shikamaru leaned back in and kissed Neji again, his grip at the back of Neji’s head firm enough to keep them pressed together but loose enough that Neji could have pulled away if he’d wanted. Their bodies from the shoulder down didn’t touch because of the chessboard between their feet that neither one of them appeared willing to cross, but Neji felt guiltily glad for the forced separation. He wanted at least some semblance of control over the situation. 

This time when they pulled apart, it was Neji who pressed his forehead against Shikamaru’s. Outside that room, there was a world he had to face, but inside, there was an entirely different game with different rules- rules he was aching to learn by heart. 

Shikamaru was here, and he wasn’t going to leave; Neji wouldn’t let him leave. But now that he was here, Neji had some questions he wanted answered. 

Taking a deep breath, Neji placed one hand on Shikamaru’s chest and pushed him back, purposefully putting distance between them. “Shikamaru, you have a lot of explaining to do.” 

Shikamaru’s gaze was unreadable. “Do I?” 

“Of course you do!” Neji seized the tattered collar Shikamaru’s army coat, shocking the phantom. “First off, why the hell have you been skulking around for a week and never bothered to show yourself?”

Shikamaru blinked once in surprise. “...That’s what you want to know? Not how I found you, not how I’m physically here, not why I followed you across the entire country, but why I haven’t been in your face for the past week?” 

“I’m a smart man, Shikamaru,” Neji snapped back. “I can figure a lot of these things out on my own, and if I can’t, I at least know what things are most important. And right now, the most important thing to ask is why you’ve been teasing me with this game, but never delivering!” 

“Delivering?” An amused note crept into Shikamaru’s voice. “On what?” 

In lieu of a response, Neji pulled Shikamaru forward by his collar with narrowed eyes, meeting him halfway over the chessboard again. When he let go and Shikamaru pulled away, the phantom was grinning. 

“Point taken. Why are you so collected, though?” He added curiously. “This is a far cry from the person who threw a mug of tea at my face.” 

“I’ve had plenty of time to think about things over the past week.” Neji reached up and placed a hand on Shikamaru’s chest again, pushing him back, but this time he followed the phantom, stepping over the chessboard. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that there are relatively few things I’ve found in this life that make me happy, so I’m not about to let one of those things go.” His hand curled into a fist in Shikamaru’s collar. “So, your turn now: what game have you been playing this past week?” 

His face softening, Shikamaru reached up to trail a finger down Neji’s cheek, then pulled away the hand at his collar and gently threaded their fingers together. “Proving a point.” 

“Excuse me?” 

The focus of Shikamaru’s gaze shifted from Neji’s face to somewhere far away. “...You don't care about me. You just need someone to strive against…”

Neji jumped at the echo of the words he had spoken in that clearing a week ago, coming from Shikamaru’s mouth instead of his own. “I really said that, didn’t I? I’m sorry-”

“You don’t need to be.” Shikamaru leaned closer. “It was probably true at the time when you said it. My point is, I’ve proven it false now.” 

A frown creased the skin between Neji’s eyebrows. “But ghosts, even phantoms, can’t change their fundamental personalities; they’re static creatures. The only ghost-” 

“Shhhh…” Shikamaru placed a finger over Neji’s open mouth. “Let’s leave that particular can of worms to open on another day.” 

“But-” 

“Didn’t I tell you to shush?” Shikamaru leaned forward and silenced Neji with something far more efficient than a finger, effectively blocking all sound from escaping his mouth, instead getting stuck in his throat. A sudden memory flashed in front of Neji’s vision as he felt his eyelids close automatically and his arms come up to trap Shikamaru closer to his body. 

_ With a sudden fervor, Shikamaru slammed Neji back against the tree with enough force to make him gasp into their conjoined mouths, asserting his dominance over the boy. But Neji was having none of that and pushed back almost violently against the phantom, knocking him off his feet and sending him tumbling to the ground. But Neji wasn't far behind him, following him down in an awkward tangle of limbs. Their mouths rested an inch away from each other's as their eyes connected, a smug confidence radiating out from Neji's eyes into Shikamaru's pleasantly surprised gaze before he kissed the phantom again, but gentler this time.  _

_ Shikamaru seemed to allow the new pace for a few seconds before retaking control of the kiss and Neji. For a few moments, he dominated the kiss from below, making Neji come to him, before he flipped the two of them over, reversing their positions. With the better leverage of his new position, Shikamaru was able to completely dominate Neji, keeping him pinned to the ground even when he made a valiant effort to reverse their positions once more.  _

_ Yeah, that’s right,  _ Neji thought a little numbly, his physical body too occupied with something else to fully focus on the thought.  _ He pushed me down, took control of me… but he’s not doing that now.  _

Another memory took that one’s place, a shorter but more painful memory. 

_ Almost gleefully, Shikamaru resumed his attack on Neji's mouth, kissing him with more force and keeping him pinned against the ground with the weight of his now completely corporeal body. Neji could feel the dampness of the waterlogged moss soaking through his clothes and making him uncomfortable, but that wasn’t the only thing that was getting damp. Suddenly, there was a dampness on Neji's face that didn't come from the moss, and he stopped moving. Clearly confused, Shikamaru pulled back to look at Neji's expression, but as soon he broke the kiss, Neji turned his head to the side, hiding his eyes but not the tears trailing down his cheeks.  _

_ “See? I was right,” he whispered quietly, his voice catching. “You don't need me. You just need someone to strive against.”  _

After that, Shikamaru had jumped back as if Neji had burned him, which he likely had. The action had only served to prove Neji right - in his own mind, at least - though, so he hadn’t thought about it since. But now, as Neji felt the shadows around them start to grow again, unencumbered by the need for space between their bodies now that their feet weren’t separated by the chessboard, he sensed the desperation in Shikamaru's actions, the plea not to push him away - because he would try his damndest not to push back. The realization touched Neji; Shikamaru really had tried to change himself from the conversation they’d had. He doubted if the phantom had ever done so much for any other person before. 

And that’s when Neji realized that they were no longer playing a game. 

His first impulse was to freeze, but he shook the impulse off and pulled back more gently than his panicked emotions screamed at him to do, but less gently than before. Neji could see his own reflection in Shikamaru’s dark, glass-like eyes, and he saw the same panicked emotions creeping onto his face before Shikamaru blinked and the reflection was gone. 

“Neji?” He asked with concern in his voice, reaching out to grasp Neji’s arm. “What’s wrong?” 

_ Nothing and everything at the same time!  _ Neji’s mind supplied. He flinched away from Shikamaru’s searching hand before it made contact with his arm, stumbling backwards to break free of the shadows around him that suddenly felt constricting until his back hit his dresser and he slid down to sit on the floor. In passing, his foot had stuck the chessboard, scattering the pieces across his bedroom floor, and Shikamaru followed the paths of the pieces until the all came to rest before glancing back up to Neji’s face, which he was sure still had traces of panic on it. 

“Neji?” He repeated, but strangely, more calmly this time. “Are you alright?” 

Neji opened his mouth to respond, to give some kind of false assurance, anything at all, but nothing would come out. Luckily, he was saved from having to actually say anything by his ringtone, signalling that his personal cell phone was getting a call. Without thinking, his eyes flicked to where his phone lay on the table next to his bed before he remembered what had happened the last time he had glanced at his helpfully interrupting phone during a heated moment with the phantom. Even more panic growing in his chest, his breath caught in his throat as he snapped his head back to look at Shikamaru, but his lungs relaxed and resumed their normal flow of air to his lungs when he saw that the phantom was still standing where he had been, even though shadows were gathering around his feet as if preparation for a sudden departure. 

“Who is it?” Shikamaru asked, but some of the life was gone from his voice. 

A little unsteadily, Neji stood up so he could look at the screen of the ringing phone, and his eyebrows knitted together in confusion when he saw the name the person calling him. “It’s Sasuke.” He reached down automatically to pick up the phone and stare at the screen. “Why is he calling me? Don’t tell me… something happened?” 

“Is something important going on?” Shikamaru demanded, his voice suddenly sounding very alive again. “Is there something wrong with Sasuke?” 

“No, he just said that his father was worried about him a week ago and had pulled him back to Chicago early… though he did say that his father didn’t say what he was worried about.” 

“You should probably take it, then.” 

Neji looked up in surprise at Shikamaru’s words, unable to say to himself that he wasn’t disappointed that the phantom hadn’t demanded that he ignore the call and finish what they had started.  _ Not that I knew exactly what we had started… _ But Shikamaru was right; given everything that had happened over the summer, it probably wasn’t the best idea to ignore the call. 

“I probably should.” Neji raised the phone, and saw as he did so that Shikamaru's shadows were starting to twine about his body, and knew without knowing how that this meant that he was going to disappear soon. “Wait!” He called out reflexively, unsure himself why he was stopping the ghost from leaving. 

The progress of the shadows around Shikamaru’s body stopped, and he arched one characterized eyebrow at Neji. “Yes?” 

“Well- I… I mean…” Neji floundered a few seconds before squaring his shoulders. “You’re not going to leave now and just mess with me for another whole week, are you?” 

Something in Shikamaru’s eyes unmistakably softened. “I’ve already proven my point. There would be no reason to do so a second time.”

A hopeful smile stole across Neji’s face, though he tried to deny it. “Then you’ll come back tomorrow?” 

A single one of Shikamaru’s eyebrows twitched upwards delicately. “At six?” 

“It’s a date.” Neji used the figure of speech deliberately, just to see Shikamaru’s reaction, but he read nothing in the phantom’s face except a faint amusement at what was likely, to him, a completely transparent gesture. 

“I’ll leave the board,” was he said in response before the shadows swirled up around him and he sank through the floorboards, leaving no trace of his presence behind and Neji alone in his bedroom. 

A faint buzz from his phone alerted Neji that he hadn’t picked up in time and the call had been forwarded to his voicemail, and Sasuke had left him a message. He didn’t bother listening to the message, instead selecting Sasuke’s name to call him back. The call was picked up after the first ring, as if Sasuke still had his phone in his hand. 

“Sasuke?” Neji asked brusquely, still distracted and out of focus from Shikamaru’s arrival and subsequent departure. “What’s up? Did something happen?” 

“Neji…” 

The word was choked, as if the person on the other end of the line had a stuffy nose, and their voice was thick as if from tears. The sound immediately snapped Neji back to reality, and he stood up sharply. 

“Sasuke? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you alright?” The questions burst rapid-fire from Neji’s mouth until he clamped a hand over it, forcing himself to be quiet to listen to the voice on the other end of the line. 

“I’m fine; I’m sorry if I scared you,” Sasuke answered thickly, and Neji felt his heart descend from his throat to somewhere closer to where it should be. “I just… I didn’t know who else I could call…” 

“What happened?” Neji asked, but more calmly this time, even though his heart was still beating faster than normal. “No one’s hurt-?” 

“No!” Sasuke quickly assured him with a slight cough. “No one’s hurt. I… I just… I went to see my older brother, Itachi, in the psychiatric ward today.” 

Neji’s throat immediately tightened. His first, instinctive thought was one of relief, or perhaps even happiness for Sasuke, but it was followed just as quickly by confusion. Itachi had been a figure that represented a lot of conflicting emotion and repressed feelings for Sasuke for years, so it was a good thing that Sasuke had made the decision to reconnect with him- at least, theoretically. But what had gone wrong to make him this upset? 

After swallowing hard, Neji foraged ahead carefully. “And? Did it not go well?” 

“Not go well!” The words exploded out of Sasuke, drilling themselves from the phone into Neji’s ear with enough force to make him wince. “It went fucking perfect! Couldn’t have gone better if I’d planned every word spoken in that room myself!”

Neji frowned, now even more confused than before. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand. Why are you so upset?” 

“My father just got a call,” Sasuke answered morosely, and Neji could hear the misery in his voice escalating. “Itachi escaped from the hospital this afternoon. No one knows where he is.” 

All the air went out of Neji as if he had been punched in the gut. He struggled to take in enough oxygen to form a coherent response. A part of his mind in the back of his head wondered in a detached way if he, who had never known Sasuke’s older brother well enough to truly say he cared for him, was reacting like this, how much worse would it have been for the people who had been close to him. 

Luckily, Neji was relieved of the responsibility of speaking as Sasuke continued. “But that’s not the worst of it… the last thing he said to me before I left was a promise that I would see him again tomorrow. Well, obviously that’s not going to happen now.” 

Neji’s chest tightened as he tried desperately to think of what he should say. He was usually pragmatic in the way he dealt with things, so he didn’t know what he could, let alone should, do in the face of Sasuke’s distress. Should Neji comfort Sasuke as if he had experienced a loss, or a betrayal? Should he sympathize with Sasuke, or get him to think about it from his brother’s perspective? Did he even have any right to interfere in this situation? Sure, Sasuke had called him, but Neji felt like he didn’t know enough about Uchiha family customs or Itachi himself to make a decision either way on the matter. 

In the end, he didn’t, choosing to keep his words carefully neutral instead. “How are you and your family doing?” 

“Ha!” Sasuke gave a brief laugh, devoid of humor. “I think my mother’s shut herself in the bathroom and is refusing to come out, and my father let me know Itachi was missing by hauling me up and screaming in my face that I was the last person to see him, so I must have been the one who helped him escape. But other than that, I think we’re all fine here.” 

Okay, back to the cynical sarcasm. Neji remembered this part of Sasuke as being one he didn’t particularly like. “Not to be rude, Sasuke, but why did you call me? I’m a few thousand miles and two time zones away; I don’t see how I could possibly be of any help to you.” 

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line before Sasuke spoke again. “Way to rub my lack of friends in my face, Neji.” 

_ Whoops _ . Neji winced. “Sorry about that. But really, can I do something for you? Is there anything you need to talk about?”  _ Preferably something ghost-related, because that’s all I’m really good at.  _

“No, I guess not,” Sasuke sighed thickly, and Neji felt a wash of guilty relief flood through his system that he immediately tried to stem, but to no avail. He did not like to deal with upset people. His professional dealings with the impartial and unimpassioned Hyuuga clan elders had made him accustomed to interacting with others without the cumbersome hindrance of emotions, and that had gradually bled over into his private life as well. “I guess I just wanted to tell someone before I exploded…. Sorry for calling you in the middle of the night; you don’t need to hear about my problems.” 

“It’s not a problem,” Neji countered gently, carefully reminding himself that emotions were like eggshells and could crack and create a mess at the slightest pressure applied in the wrong way. “Remember, it’s not as late here as it is where you are. If you need someone to talk to about something, I’m here.” 

Sasuke snorted lightly. “Thanks, even if I know you’re only being nice to me because I’m upset.” 

“What? Never.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks for listening to my rant, Neji. I feel a bit better now.” 

“That’s good, at least.” Neji walked a few steps and sat down on his bed. “Hey, while we’re already talking, how have things worked out with your father about the Akatsuki? Do you think he or anyone else is suspicious about what really happened?” 

“As far as I know, he bought the story, and he’s the only person I have to convince. How about on your end?” 

Neji winced, thinking about his most recent bout of mentally draining questioning. “They were suspicious from the beginning, but I think I’ve managed to convince them. They haven’t taken Hinata out of my care, at least. Other than that, I don’t know.” 

Neji heard Sasuke sigh on the other end of the line. “I guess that’s as good as it gets.” 

“For now, at least.” Neji glanced at the clock next to his bed. “Isn’t it past eleven where you are, Sasuke? Shouldn’t you be going to bed?” 

“Eleven? Are you serious?” The incredulity was clear in Sasuke’s voice, and Neji was glad that he’d managed to take his mind off things at least, if nothing else. “Eleven is early for a college student! Haven’t you ever pulled the trick where you finish the term paper at four in the morning of the day it’s due?” 

“Hm. Can’t say I ever have.” Neji hadn’t - despite being several years older than Sasuke, he had never attended a formal university and had been mostly instructed by private tutors, and the single degree that was framed somewhere in his closet he had gotten through taking online classes. Since his future had been laid out for him the moment he had been born by the Hyuuga family elders - much like every other Hyuuga - he had never considered higher education that he would never use important- but Sasuke didn’t need to know that. “In any case, you’re probably overtired. You’ll feel better after you sleep some.” 

Neji heard Sasuke sigh again on the other end of the line. “I suppose you’re right. Thanks again for listening to my mental breakdown, and let me know if I can do anything to help with your family.” 

“It’s not likely, but I’ll keep it in mind. And the same extends to you as well, of course.” Neji glanced at his clock again. “I have to be up and out by six tomorrow, so I have to let you go. Are you okay now?” 

“Yeah, I’m mostly fine. Just stunned from letting go of a decades long grudge and opening myself up only to be sucker-punched in the gut about a second later, is all. I’ll survive.” This time, Neji chose not to remark on Sasuke’s sarcasm, and he sighed again. “Goodnight, Neji. I hope we don’t have to talk again soon; I’m sick of emergencies.” 

“Well said. Goodnight, Sasuke.” 

With that, Neji ended the connection and flopped backwards onto his bed with a sigh. This evening had been confusing, to say the least. The only good thing that had come out of it was the chessboard still sitting in the middle of his room. 

The chessboard. Despite the conversation he had just had with Sasuke, Neji could help but smile a little at the thought. His phone gave out a sharp tone again, the one he recognized as the tone for his work email, but he ignored it. He could get it in the morning with the rest of the paperwork he had set aside. The smile still refusing to leave his face, he leaned over to turn off his bedside lamp and settled down to sleep. 

 


	2. Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Kisame complete their escape as Shikamaru tracks down some information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, just so everyone know, this is the chapter where the story starts to live up to its increased rating. When I first wrote the story, I almost didn't include it because I was worried about having a *cough cough* smexy scene this close to the beginning of the story, and not the main pairing, but then I realized that this is my story and I can do what I want! 
> 
> If you aren't interested in reading smut and are just in this in the plot, you can just skip from when Itachi and Kisame get into the house until the next page break.

⚞⚟

 

Shikamaru floated six stories above a Seattle alley way in which a homeless man was tossing uncomfortably and trying to sleep in a pile of assorted fabric scraps and cardboard, leaning against the backside of an apartment building as calmly as he had once leaned against the wall of the hallways in the Hokage. Shadows swirled around him, cloaking his presence from anyone - ghost or still alive - with the skills to sense it. Of course, it was only a rudimentary cloak, and if anyone had been actively looking for him, they would have found him fairly quickly, particularly if they were using the Byakugan eyes of the Hyuuga family. Luckily for Shikamaru, however, the only Hyuuga within a several mile radius of his cloaked form was sleeping soundly on the other side of the window he was currently staring through. 

It was late August, a time in Maine that would be horribly hot and humid, far too sticky for his tastes, even as a ghost, but here in Seattle the ever-present layer of clouds in the sky - even when it wasn’t actively raining - prevented the air from becoming too hot, though it was still rather humid. As such, the man sleeping in the bed through the window could make it through the night in his full-body pajamas, though he soon kicked aside all but his sheet as his body rejected the over-heating he had subjugated himself to. Really, Shikamaru had to wonder, why were the pajamas - the old fashioned kind rich old men wore in movies set a hundred years in the past - necessary? From observing all the clothing he had worn when he had been in Konoha, Shikamaru knew that Neji usually covered up as much skin as he could, often spurning short and short-sleeved shirts in favor of attire that was more professional - and much more uncomfortable in the heat. Why, though? It was another one of the mysteries that he was desperate to solve. 

The top button of Neji’s shirt had come undone during his sleeping movements, and as Shikamaru watched, the fabric slipped down his chest and showed off the hard ridge of a collarbone and the beginning of a firm pectoral muscle. The teasing line of fabric dipped tantalizingly close to where a pert nipple would be hiding, and Shikamaru knew it would take very little effort for him to call it further down… all in the name of making Neji more comfortable in the heat, of course… 

_ No. _ This kind of thinking had to stop right there. Shikamaru had worked too hard over the past week to get rid of it for it to come slinking back now. He wasn’t in this for just his own pleasure. In a game, you didn’t get hurt if you could make the rules. But in real life, like warfare, there were no clear-cut rules, and playing by the ones make up by another person was sometimes the only option. 

Keeping his face deliberately blank, Shikamaru pushed away from the wall at his back and shoved his hands in his pockets. It looked like he was going to be in Seattle for a while, so he’d better do some reconnaissance and figure out the ghosts of the city so he knew which ones he should befriend and which ones he should avoid. After all, a powerful spirit like him couldn’t expect to live in the heart of the city for much longer without being discovered by at least one other ghost of draugr level or above. Keeping his hands tucked firmly in his pockets, he let go of the shadows surrounding him, shrugging his shoulders slightly as they evaporated from around his body to dismiss the army coat he was wearing and call up a more modern t-shirt and pair of denim jeans, cut off just below the knee. 

Leaning forward with his hands still firmly in the pockets of his new attire, Shikamaru took a step forward in the air. His foot sank down a good six inches before stopping on what appeared to be solid air, like he had taken a step down on a flight of stairs. He repeated the motion with his other foot and then with the first one again, stepping down that set of steps in a circle, like he was walking down a spiral staircase. When he neared the bottom, he saw that the ghost of the homeless man trying to fall asleep in his seedy pile of trash - and failing because he was dead - had already noticed him, and he smiled without pity. 

_ Good. At least I won’t have to try and “ _ wake _ ” him. That would be troublesome.  _

“Wh… who are you?” The ghost stuttered, pulling away from Shikamaru’s form as he stared down at him without any expression on his face. 

Suddenly, Shikamaru smiled reassuringly and leaned down close to the homeless ghost, extending a hand to him. 

“Oh, that doesn’t really matter. I’d like to ask you a few questions, though. Don’t worry; I don’t want to hurt you. I’m just looking for someone, and I think you may be able to help me find them.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Neji woke up the next morning before his alarm went off, his wide but uncomprehending eyes fixed on the steadily ticking second hand of his analogue alarm clock as it slowly approached six o’clock. The heaviness of overtiredness made his limbs stiff and unwilling to move, but his body refused to let him sleep because his mind was too busy racing in circles. 

He’d dreamed the night before, more vividly than he’d dreamed in a long time. In his dream, his room had suddenly become unbearably hot, so he’d gotten out of bed to open the window, only to be immediately engulfed by a dark shadow that had led him purposefully back to the bed. The shadow had dissipated as soon as they reached the bed, leaving Neji to sit cross legged on his disheveled covers opposite a familiar smug face crowned by a spiky ponytail. 

Then for some reason, Neji’s sheet had transformed into a huge white snake the size of an anaconda, and had tried to strangle them both before giving up and just swallowing them whole. Eventually, his companion had managed to cut them out of the snake’s stomach using only a rusted old tin spoon, whereupon they discovered that snake was no longer a snake, but a huge white whale that looked suspiciously like Moby Dick and had mysteriously managed to beach itself in a clearing in the middle of a forest. 

That part of the dream, Neji was fairly sure, was just his overtired brain throwing random shit at his subconscious in an effort to make itself feel better about its lousy showing during his waking hours in the past week, so he paid it little heed. It was the next part of the dream that Neji couldn’t get out of his mind. 

The beached whale carcass had disappeared as soon as Neji looked away from it, leaving him alone with the physical incarnation of shadow in a clearing that was starting to look uncomfortably familiar. Before he knew it, his companion had crept up behind him and brushed his hair to the side, gently blowing on the nape of his neck before pressing a warm pair of lips to his skin, shadows twining around them both to tie them together in more and more intimate ways. 

And that’s when the dream got a bit - ahem -  _ interesting _ . Neji’s face burned upon remembering, and he shoved his head underneath his pillow, breaking eye contact with his alarm clock. When it went off several minutes later, Neji, for the first time in his life, hit the snooze button and rolled over to face the wall. 

He didn’t remember falling asleep again, but he must have because sometime hours later, Neji was rudely awoken by a clattering in his kitchen. Instantly on guard, he leapt from his bed and sprinted to open the door of his bedroom, blinking rapidly at the unexpected light pouring in from the windows as he took in the sight of his living room. Everything was exactly as he’d left it the night before, with one exception: a young brown-haired girl was laying in the middle of the floor, having tripped and fallen over something - her own two feet, most likely. 

“Hinata?” Neji asked incredulously as his tired eyes forced her face into focus. “What are you doing here?” 

Hinata’s face turned a deep red as she drew herself into a ball in the middle of the floor. “I-I-I c-came ov-ver t-to p-prac-practice l-like you as-s-sked, N-Ne-j-ji,” she stammered, her ever-present stutter growing exponentially worse due to her embarrassment. “The B-Bu-By-Byak-k-ku-Byaku-” She eventually gave out a small squeak and hid her face in her hands, giving up on saying the word now that she was so worked up. “The ey-eyes-s! B-but I c-can l-leave if-f-”

“No!” Neji quickly cut her off, moving forward to help her up. “No, I’m sorry, Hinata; I slept through my alarm. It won’t happen again, I promise. Just give me a minute to get changed, and I’ll join you and we can start.” 

“G-get ch-changed…?” If possible, Hinata’s face got even redder as she looked at Neji and realized that he was still in his pajamas, and she started to shake harder that a leaf in a hurricane. “I w-woke y-you up-p! I-I-I s-s-s-sor-r-r-r-!” 

“Hinata!” Neji grabbed Hinata by the shoulders as her knees buckled to stop the horrible tremors that were wracking her whole body and forced her to look into his face. “It’s not your fault, alright? I didn’t get up on time. You’re perfectly fine. Just breathe, Hinata. Deep breaths, in and out. You can do it. Just breathe…” 

He kept up his steady stream of calming words in a soothing tone until he saw Hinata’s shoulders start to rise and fall in a smooth, steady rhythm. Eventually, she let her head fall forward against his collarbone as the violent tremors subsided and she was able to stand on her own strength. 

“I’m s-sorry, N-Neji,” she whispered in as loud a voice as Neji guessed she could call up right then. “I had-d an-noth-ther one. I th-thought th-they were ov-ver.” 

“It’s okay, Hinata,” Neji quickly assured her, tousling her hair gently. “You’re getting much better; that one didn’t last long. I do have to get dressed now, but I’ll be back again in just a minute, so don’t worry and just make yourself comfortable. Okay?” 

Hinata gave a tiny nod, looking like she wasn’t fooled a bit by his kind words. “O-okay, N-Neji.” 

“Good girl.” Neji gave her hair one last pat before turning back to his bedroom and closing the door behind him. 

As soon as there was an obstacle between himself and Hinata, Neji started tearing off his pajamas, ripping open a drawer to find his clothes and get dressed as quickly as possible. Throughout her whole childhood and her teen years up until that point, Hinata had often had small, nervous attacks where her stutter would get worse and she would become physically unable to move her own body, but she’d mostly grown out of them by this point. That she had had one of this magnitude now was worrying, and meant that Neji would have to be extra careful around her today. 

The elders of the Hyuuga family had never agreed to send Hinata for either speech or any other kind of therapy, despite both Neji and her father - hundreds of times in Neji’s case, and only once in her father’s - asking, because they didn’t want to admit that there was anything wrong with her that meant she needed help. In their eyes, if you were a Hyuuga, you were perfect, and anything less was simply not accepted. 

So Neji had taken it upon himself the last few years to help Hinata himself the best he could with both her stutter and her confidence issues that sprang from extreme shyness and self-consciousness caused by the stutter, but he suspected the damage had already been done. If Hinata had gotten professional help when she had been a child, like she’d needed, she might have been able to overcome it, but now that she was older it was very likely that both her stutter and her lack of confidence had been completely ingrained into her personality. His interest had been noted quickly by the Hyuuga elders, but instead of punishing him for it, they’d seen the difference between him and Hinata and pounced on it, deciding that he would be her personal tutor in all matters that required family tutelage, mainly learning to control her eyes and the family history. They’d ordered that he become her primary caretaker in all but name, and Neji knew the day when they ordered him to become that wouldn’t be far off. 

Sometimes it was hard for Neji to believe the transformation their relationship had undergone since they were children. He and Hinata were cousins, related by the fathering being brothers, but they’d been raised as siblings ever since Neji’s father had died when he was eight and she was almost three. Even though they’d been raised so closely, however, Neji had always felt strange around Hinata, and even hated her for a number of years, because of the special treatment she received from the clan elders as the eldest child of the elder son - despite the fact that her father and his had been twins, and his father had only been born minutes after hers. He’d seethed in resentment, watching from a distance for a long time as she’d slowly folded and become crushed, all alone, under the pressure that had made him the hard man he was today, until he’d suddenly been forced into a situation where he’d had to look at her straight on, and he’d been flooded with the urge to protect instead of scoff… but that’s a story for another time. He’d already wasted enough time with first expositional flashback, and didn’t want to leave Hinata alone for longer than he already had. 

Finishing up the buttons on his shirt, Neji ran to his door, tucking the ends of his shirt into his pants and taking a deep breath to calm down his over-excited heart rate before opening up the door with a smile as if he hadn’t just been running around his room like a terrified cartoon character outmaneuvering a hail of miraculously untouchable bullets as he looked for the missing mate to a sock. 

“Sorry to keep you,” he said calmly as he took his seat on the floor across from where Hinata was sitting, waiting for him. “Where were we again?” 

“C-concentration of power around the eyes in order to use the B-Byakugan,” she answered timidly, but Neji was relieved to hear that her stutter had diminished again and that she was able to get the word ‘Byakugan’ out this time. “We were doing focus work.” 

“Ah, that’s right.” Neji clasped his hands together. “Let’s start on that again, then. Can you talk me through the steps you’ve learned so far?” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Itachi didn’t remember falling asleep, but some time after they had left the city he was shaken awake by Kisame’s large hand falling on his shoulder. 

“Wake up, Itachi. We’re at the halfway point.” 

“Hmmmm…?” Itachi pulled his head up from its soft resting place, realizing belatedly that it was Kisame’s lap. “Where are we?” 

His foggy mind registered that the car engine had stopped just before the door on Kisame’s side opened and his pillow was forcibly take from him. It wasn’t long, however, before he heard his own door open and felt Kisame reach around him to undo his seatbelt. 

“A safe house,” Kisame said as he pulled Itachi from the car. “We’re switching drivers. They’ll keep going in case the police caught our plates, and we’ll stay here for the night. Another car will come pick us up in the morning.” 

But Itachi only heard the first part of what Kisame said. His attention had been caught by something else, something he had yearned to feel for the past eight years: clean, fresh air. Evening had fallen, Itachi could tell from the slight zip in the air, leaving the moisture in the humid air to collect on the grass his shoes swished through. In the distance, small songbirds were chirping and a squirrel chattered, the sounds and smells of the city left far behind them. Unable to help himself, Itachi collapsed to his knees in the damp grass, wetting the fabric of his pants, and let his fingers trail, trembling, through the wondrous plants.  _ How long had it been since I’ve touched real grass? _ He wondered dimly, too overcome by raw emotion for any other thought to take over his mind.  _ And have I ever appreciated it like this before?  _

“Itachi?” Kisame asked in growing concern, but Itachi just threw his head back and inhaled deeply of the freshly scented air. 

“Kisame…” He whispered in wonder, trailing his fingers along in the grass until they came to a small twig, which he picked up and ran his fingertips across the rough, knobbly bit of wood. “It’s real, this is real…. It’s beautiful.” 

Kisame’s hands came down on Itachi’s shoulders without warning, and he leaned his cheek against one hand and reached up to grab the other one, feeling the warmth of his body close behind him. 

From somewhere back by the car, Itachi heard one of the drivers shout something to Kisame, but he didn’t pay attention to what it was. Behind him, Kisame answered quickly that they were fine and the drivers were good to leave; he would take care of everything here. This was followed by a final reminder that they should get inside as quickly as possible, just in case, to which Kisame gave a noncommittal grunt and instructed the men to leave. 

A few seconds later, Itachi heard the car roar to life behind him, then it backed up, turned around, and disappeared down the road, leaving behind only the vanishing sound of its engine, but he didn’t pay it much mind. He was too drunk on the sensations around him to care much about the car, or even Kisame’s grasp as he pulled him to his feet. 

“Itachi, are you sure you’re alright?” 

“I… I’m fine,” Itachi gasped, grasping onto Kisame’s shirtfront for support and feeling the sunglasses that Kisame must have returned to his face when he was sleeping slip down his nose. “God, Kisame, I’m outside! It’s so clean and fresh and I just know it’s green and beautiful and… and…” A dry sob found its way into Itachi’s throat, choking him for a moment. “It doesn’t smell of disinfectant, or hospitals or medicine, and there’s no doctors who pump you full of chemicals to turn your brain to mush or nurses who bring you plastic spoons instead of real ones or heart rate monitors or video surveillance or… or…” Overcome by emotion, Itachi threw his arms around Kisame’s chest - which was so large he had trouble getting all the way around it - and buried his face against his neck, feeling the thin, perfect lines carved into his skin brush against his own cheek. “Thank you, Kisame. You did it; you made the one wish I had come true. I don’t know what else to say besides thank you… so I’ll say it as many times as I need.” 

“You don’t need to,” Kisame said gently, brushing the back of Itachi’s hair with his hand. “I already know.” 

“But I want to say it anyway.” Itachi’s arms tightened around Kisame, and he turned his face so his lips were kissing the scars on Kisame’s neck as he spoke. “Thank you, Kisame.  _ Thank you. _ ” 

Kisame must have been surprised by the words or the move, because he was silent and still for a few seconds before he cleared his throat almost uncomfortably, gently shifting so he was cradling Itachi’s head against his chest instead of it being close to his neck. “Um, Itachi…?”

“Yes, Kisame?” 

“I, uh, have something for you…” 

Something for him? Itachi pulled back and tilted his face upwards, even if he couldn’t look at Kisame’s face. “What is it?” 

“Here…” Without warning, Kisame snatched the sunglasses off Itachi’s face, revealing his ruined eye sockets to the fresh, clean air. Itachi hissed at the loss and tried instinctively to cover his face, but Kisame quickly overpowered him and turned him around, and before he could react, something soft was pressed over his scarred eyes. 

“Kisame?” He asked in confusion as he felt Kisame tie the ends of the thing he had pressed over his eyes behind his head. “What are you doing?” 

“I had them make it special for you,” Kisame replied gruffly. “It’s a bandana, but made a little differently and from a different fabric so it would be more comfortable for you.” 

“A bandana?” Itachi repeated slowly, still not completely understanding. 

There was an awkward pause as Kisame scuffed one foot in the grass, the sound pummeling against Itachi’s ears like the ticking of a clock. “You know…” Kisame muttered a little nervously, the faint sound of rustling hair, as if he was scratching the back of his head, coming to Itachi’s ears. “It’s got our colors on it…” 

_ Our colors… _

Itachi’s hand crept up to cover his mouth, his voice lost somewhere in between his lungs and the lump that suddenly formed in his throat.  _ Our colors. _ Not the gang’s colors, not his colors, but theirs. He was included in the people who wore those colors and would be a part of them. The gesture was as sweet as it was unexpected, and Itachi loved Kisame all the more for it. 

Wait… 

Loved him? 

Kisame apparently took Itachi’s silence in the opposite way, because the sound of his feet shuffling in the damp grass assaulted Itachi’s ears, as if he was nervously shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away from Itachi. “You don’t have to wear it,” he muttered low enough that Itachi almost didn’t hear him. “Just until I can get you something else to put over your scar… It’s not that important…” But his tone of disappointment belayed those words, telling Itachi exactly how important it was to him. 

A huge smile cracking across Itachi’s face, he threw himself in Kisame’s direction and hoped the bigger man would be able to catch him. He almost missed and stumbled on the grass, but Kisame grabbed him around the waist before he fell, giving him the opportunity to throw his arms around his neck again. 

“I’ll never take it off!” Itachi swore with the biggest grin he had worn in his life on his face, his hand finding Kisame’s cheek and feeling an answering grin push the ridges of his cheekbones higher. 

“Really?” He asked, picking Itachi up and swinging him around like a child. “You really mean it?” 

Itachi’s stomach had dropped out as he had felt himself being hoisted in the air, but not from fear. When Kisame slowed his spinning to a stop, he didn’t let Itachi down, so he was left suspended a foot or so above the ground, both hands on Kisame’s cheeks and his face angled down toward his. “Of course I do,” he smiled almost on a whisper. “I owe you so much, Kisame. My humanity, my sanity, and now, my freedom.” 

“You were perfectly sane when I found you,” Kisame said back just as quietly, but Itachi was already shaking his head. 

“But for how much longer?” He slid his hand upward so his thumbs rested on Kisame’s temples, then using them as a guide, leaned down and rested his own forehead against Kisame’s. “My point is, Kisame, I would be honored to spend the rest of my life working with you, in any capacity.” 

“Working with me?” Kisame asked mischievously, readjusting his grip so he was supporting Itachi with one hand and the other was resting on the back of his neck. “Or just… with me?” 

Itachi threw his head back and laughed, the first real laugh he’d had since he’d been freed. The sound was like honey to his parched ears, but the kind of honey that’s been left to sit for years and has crystallized into a rough sugar that’s somehow more delicious than the new bottle, aged and having spent a long time waiting to be used. “Either way works.” 

“Itachi, you’re too much,” he heard Kisame say, his voice soft. 

“No,” Itachi said back, just as softly. “Everything is too much. The sounds and the smells and the feel of everything is better than I remembered, better than I could ever imagined. I want to stay here forever and explore the whole world at the same time. Kisame, I want-” 

He suddenly broke off, surprised when he realized the words set to come out of his mouth next were  _ I want to kiss you. _

“What do you want, Itachi?” Kisame asked, and Itachi tilted his head back down to face him. 

_ Well, we did have a certain “promise”, _ he thinks to himself, unable to stop a sly grin from sneaking across his face. “Kisame, do you remember what you said to me? Our non-verbal promise?” 

“Promise?” 

“Mm-hm.” Itachi laid his hand on Kisame’s cheek again as a reference point for his lips. “I think it went something along the lines of ‘this can’t mean anything right now, but when you’re free, perhaps it can then…’ or something like that. Do you remember now? It was quite a long time ago, after all.” 

“Remember it?” The words rumbled deeply from Kisame’s chest. “I’ve been waiting for months for the moment when you would walk out of that hospital and fall into my arms.” 

“Well, technically, I fell into a net and you were the one who pushed me, but I think I can let that one slide.” 

A growl formed low in Kisame’s throat, vibrating Itachi’s hand pressed against his cheek. “You’d better.” 

“Oh, please,” Itachi murmured, leaning in closer. “You already apologized, and I already forgave you. Mostly. Now just shut up and ravish me.” 

Kisame had probably intended to respond to that, which was why his mouth was open when Itachi leaned in to kiss him. His aim was off slightly and he almost bit his own tongue when he collided with Kisame’s face with a little more force than he expected, having misjudged the distance between them, but he soon corrected his angle and slipped his tongue into Kisame’s already open mouth, surprising the larger man with the bold move. However, Kisame didn’t let him keep the upper hand for long and swiftly gained control of Itachi with the hand at the back of his neck, tugging him down harder and making it impossible for him to pull away. 

Itachi could only marvel at Kisame’s strength as he continued to hold him in the air with one arm while the other ran through his hair, never letting the downward pressure subside. A shiver went down his spine as Kisame purposefully attacked his mouth with his tongue, rolling powerfully against Itachi’s own tongue. With a fervor that almost bordered on desperation, Itachi seized Kisame’s jaw in both hands and kissed him back with as much force as he could muster. 

Abruptly, Kisame pulled away, leaving Itachi to gasp like a drowning man just rescued from a watery grave, having forgotten how to breathe when he had been connected at the mouth to Kisame, then he dropped Itachi to the ground. While he had enjoyed his brief stint being taller than the bigger man, Itachi didn’t complain as he was reduced to his normal height, especially when Kisame’s hands settled at his waist and pulled his hips forward until they pressed against his own. Itachi stifled a moan at the contact, embarrassed at the ease of his reaction. Since he was always under some kind of surveillance or other in the hospital, it had been a very long time since he’d allowed himself to get turned on, and now that he finally could he was becoming so embarrassingly quickly. 

“Ah, Itachi…” Kisame murmured heatedly in Itachi’s ear, one hand traveling down his back to grab his ass and give a gentle squeeze, eliciting another embarrassed moan from his willing captive. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long, I almost can’t believe it’s real, that you’re really here…”

Itachi looped his arms around Kisame’s neck and went in to kiss him again, misjudging the distance again but not as badly as before. His face was tilted upwards this time instead of downward, but he still felt Kisame’s hand at the back of his neck, urging him forward and deeper. He couldn’t help but let his breathing become ragged as he felt his body start to tingle every place Kisame touched him. When they separated again, he felt his heart pounding, completely free from the constraints of a monitor for the purpose of keeping him calm. 

“You can believe it,” he whispered, not able to see the expression Kisame’s face but knowing the other man was as affected by the kiss as he was by the feeling of his breath against his own skin in ragged, uncontrolled pants. “I’m here… and I don’t plan on leaving.” 

He pressed a quick kiss to Kisame’s cheek, exactly where he planned it this time; the first two misses had been enough for his to map out where Kisame was in relation to him. 

Kisame groaned and pulled Itachi’s lower body closer, and Itachi was forced to bite his lower lip in order to keep a similar sound from escaping him. “For months I’ve been watching you, Itachi,” Kisame admitted, smoothing the hair back from Itachi’s face, his fingers lingering on the headband that he himself had tied over his eyes. “You drove me crazy with every little thing you did.” 

Itachi couldn’t stop a small smile from forming on his lips. “Really?” 

Shifting a little guiltily, Kisame confessed, “I spent way too much time staring at you, imagining…. All I wanted to do was forget about the video and the heart rate monitor, pin you to that bed, rip your clothes off and have my wicked way with you.” 

Undaunted by the explicit confession, Itachi pressed himself closer. “And now?” He teased gently, sliding a hand up Kisame’s chest in the hopes of provoking him. 

Catching the teasing hand, Kisame whispered hotly in Itachi’s ear, “And now I’m trying to resist the temptation to throw you down right here and fuck you into the ground.” 

Itachi tilted his head to the side, considering it. 

“…I’d probably let you do it.” 

That drew another groan from Kisame. “Don’t push my willpower. It wouldn’t be safe; we need to get inside in case the car was being chased…” 

“Bring me inside then, Kisame,” Itachi murmured seductively, running his uncaptured hand up his captor’s chest. “ _ Take _ me inside.” 

From the guttural sound that came out of Kisame’s throat and the way he seized Itachi’s other hand in the same manner as the first, Itachi knew the bigger man had not missed his deliberate double entendre. It only took a few seconds for him to make up his mind, and before Itachi knew what was happening, Kisame had hoisted him up in the air and was walking in the direction he assumed the safe house was in. After about ten steps, he paused only slightly, and Itachi heard the sound of a door banging open and then slamming shut again behind him. The house was quiet, but pleasantly so, the only background noises the hum of an air conditioner and the creaking of the floorboards beneath his and Kisame’s combined weight. He only had a few seconds to take this all in, however, because without missing a beat, Kisame took four steps into the house and tossed Itachi down on a piece of furniture - swinging his arm out for balance at the shock of being dropped and finding its back, Itachi determined it to be a couch - then came down after him. 

“I hope-” Itachi started, but Kisame cut him off by placing his hand over his mouth. 

“We’ll have no more of your sass, Itachi Uchiha,” he warned in a dangerously sexy voice. 

Smirking a little to himself, Itachi licked Kisame’s hand, running his tongue down the length of one of his fingers as he withdrew it. “’M not an Uchiha anymore,” he gasped out, reaching up blindly and finding Kisame’s cheek. “Itachi Uchiha died in that hospital eight years ago. I’m just… just Itachi now.” 

“Well,  _ just Itachi, _ would you like me to kiss you again?” 

Itachi tried to snort disparagingly, but the effect was ruined by his elevated heartbeat and breathing and - he suspected - his red cheeks. “You have to ask?” 

Chuckling, Kisame leaned down again and pressed his lips against Itachi’s again, ending their brief bout of conversation. Itachi could tell that Kisame was supporting his own body weight so he wouldn’t crush him, one hand braced next to Itachi’s head, the other hand resting almost tenderly against Itachi’s cheek. But Itachi suddenly didn’t care about whether his lungs would work or not; he just wanted Kisame closer, so he looped both arms around Kisame’s neck and pressed himself upwards to try and feel more of those muscles against his body. 

Kisame’s tongue suddenly pressed against the seam of Itachi’s lips, and he let him inside his mouth immediately, feeling a surge of pure arousal run down his spine at the feeling of that demanding mouth covering his own. Eagerly meeting the thrusts of Kisame’s tongue with his own, Itachi let it be known that he would not be submitting without a fight - until Kisame broke away and instead attached himself to Itachi’s neck, dragging the hand that had been at Itachi’s cheek down his chest at the same time, and Itachi suddenly found that he wasn’t so opposed to submitting anymore. 

“Ah- ahh!” 

Kisame bit down on Itachi’s neck, eliciting a cry from him. Quickly, he pressed a gentle kiss to the hurt area before pulling back slightly. “Did I hurt you?” 

“Do… do it again…” Itachi ordered on a breathy gasp, pushing himself harder against Kisame’s body. Without meaning to, he bumped the arm Kisame was balancing his weight on, sending his heavy, musclebound body crashing down on top of him. 

_ Finally! _ Itachi moaned, his hands traveling down Kisame’s back from where they’d been around his neck, loving the feel of Kisame’s hard body against his own and craving more of it.  _ Too… much… clothes…. Yeah, that’s the problem right now… _

After a few seconds of searching, Itachi found the hem of Kisame’s shirt and struggled to pull it upward, but it was trapped between their bodies, and he was forced to admit defeat with a frustrated noise. Apparently realizing what Itachi was trying to do, Kisame sat up, straddling Itachi’s waist, and pulled his shirt over his head with the soft sound of fabric drawing across flesh, discarding it. It hit the ground somewhere to the right of the couch with a soft thud of impact, but Itachi was too preoccupied to figure out where. 

His fingertips glided forward until they touched a hard stomach, tracing along ridges of defined muscle. He would have liked to take his time “looking” at Kisame, but the tension of the moment was too much and his hands moved quickly up Kisame’s chest to rest on the balls of his shoulders. 

“How the hell do you have so many muscles?” He muttered jealously, suddenly extremely aware of the fact that he’d been completely immobile for the past eight years, and his body would definitely show it. 

“They’re a relic of the days of working under my father,” Kisame answered, and Itachi was proud to hear that he was breathing just as hard as he was. “It’s easier to keep them once you’ve got them then have to start from scratch again, so I always made sure not to let them go too much.” 

“So you were always anticipating going back?” Itachi asked. 

“No… but I always wanted to prepare for the chance that I would have to defend myself again.” Kisame leaned back down again, pressing a finger to Itachi’s mouth. “But is that really what you want to discuss right now?” 

In lieu of a response, Itachi opened his mouth and engulfed the finger inside, gently biting down on the knuckle. Kisame chuckled darkly and leaned down again, running his free hand up Itachi’s stomach underneath his shirt. Squirming slightly underneath Kisame at the feeling, Itachi opened his mouth and allowed Kisame’s finger to slide out before reaching down and trying to tug off his own shirt. He got further than with Kisame’s shirt but not all the way, making it almost past his shoulder before he got fouled up in the neck hole and the back of the shirt got snagged between his body and the couch. 

Lightly, Kisame took the shirt from Itachi’s grasp and finished pulling it over his head, leaving them both bare chested. One hand rested on Itachi’s upper side, his thumb almost brushing his nipple, and the other ran down his stomach with purposeful intent. Itachi got the feeling that Kisame was looking at him; he could almost feel the hot gaze raking over his overly sensitive skin. He felt like he should be embarrassed by the blatantly sexual look, but he was too aroused at this point to care. 

“Stop… stop teasing me like this, Kisame,” he complained roughly, throwing one arm over the band around his head and arching his back so his pelvis brushed up against Kisame’s. “I can’t… can’t take it any more…” 

“Really?” Kisame seemed surprised as his hand trailed down Itachi’s chest to rest against the bulge in his pants that was the result of his straining erection. “That was faster than I anticipated.” 

“Yeah, well, you try living in a ward where you’re monitored twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for eight years, and you see how sensitive you get-!” Itachi snapped, but broke off with a moan as Kisame squeezed gently. 

Heat shot through Itachi’s abdomen as Kisame touched him through his pants, using only the gentlest of forces, but it was still enough to send a warning shiver up his spine. 

“St-stop!” Itachi cried hoarsely, trying to push Kisame’s hand away, but it was too late and he burst apart still inside his clothes, crying out and thrusting unconsciously upwards into Kisame’s palm. 

“Ah-! Nn… Ahh!” 

Embarrassment caused Itachi’s face to flush when the last shock of his orgasm left his system, and he sent what would have been a glare at Kisame had he been able to see. “See what you made me do? Now I made a mess-!” 

Kisame shut him up by grabbing his head roughly by the hair and pulling him forward for a harsh, demanding kiss. Feeling his embarrassment sliding away, Itachi kissed back, and they were both panting hard when they broke apart. 

“That was the hottest fucking thing I have ever seen,” Kisame growled in Itachi’s ear, his hand still tangled in his hair. 

If Itachi’s cheeks could get any redder than they already were, that single sentence made him hit the maximum color saturation. “D-duly n-noted.” 

“Here, let me help you out of that.” Kisame reached down between them and swiftly undid Itachi’s pants, pulling them and his underwear off in a single smooth motion and heaving them somewhere off to the side; Itachi didn’t care enough to listen to the sound of their landing to tell exactly where. 

He shivered as his entire body was exposed to the air, particularly the damp remains of his orgasm, but he didn’t remain bothered by the cold for long. As Kisame’s hands brushed his legs and hips in their simple task, Itachi found himself growing hard again, flames coiling up from his stomach to pervade his entire body with an almost violent heat. Embarrassment long forgotten, there was only one thing on Itachi’s mind now: he was going to get laid. 

His tongue darting out to moisten his bottom lip unconsciously, Itachi reached forward as Kisame was throwing his pants to the side and ran his fingertips down his abdomen until they found the ridge of his waistband, and smiled triumphantly when he found the thing he was looking for. 

_ Bingo. _

Guided only by his sense of touch, Itachi found the button on Kisame’s pants and flicked it open, followed by his fly. Grinning now, he delved inside Kisame’s pants to feel the soft material of his boxers against his palm and the heated flesh it encased. He heard Kisame’s sharp intake of breath at the sensation, but the bigger man didn’t give any indication of stopping him. 

“Lie down,” Itachi instructed, pushing against Kisame’s chest. 

“Why?” 

“Just do it!” Itachi snapped. “It’s my turn.” 

Itachi though he heard a stifled laugh, but he ignored it and pushed Kisame until he leaned back on the couch, and Itachi kneeled between his legs. His fingers pushed at the waistband of Kisame’s pants for a moment before he decided it wasn’t worth the effort and just reached inside his underwear. 

The rough sound Kisame made when Itachi grabbed him gave him more confidence, and he slowly pulled his erection out of his pants. It was hot, and pulsed in Itachi’s hands. He wished, suddenly, that he could see it, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as he could. That kind of thinking could be poisonous. Banishing thinking altogether, Itachi ran his hands along Kisame’s length a few times to familiarize himself with it, then leaned forward until his lips brushed up against the head. 

“It- ah!” 

Itachi grinned to himself as his mouth made the descent down Kisame’s length, his tongue flicking deftly around it and eliciting a groan from deep within his throat. Itachi hummed in response to the groan, then almost choked as Kisame gasped at the sensation and thrust upwards into Itachi’s mouth without warning. 

“Gah! I’m sorry!” He cried as he pulled Itachi’s head up by the hair. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” 

Itachi coughed twice before responding. “No… I’m fine.” He moved one of his hands so it was pinning Kisame’s hip down to the couch - though, if he was being completely honest with himself, Itachi doubted that if Kisame did that again, he would be able to hold him down even it he was ready for it. “I want to try again.” 

Without waiting for a response, Itachi bent down and engulfed Kisame in his mouth again, though he was careful not to go too far down too quickly this time. Kisame’s hand was still tangled in his hair, and it tightened around a handful of strands almost painfully, but Itachi didn’t care. He couldn’t believe how much he wanted this. 

Suddenly, Itachi jerked in shock as he felt one of Kisame’s hands wander down to his ass and squeeze it. He moaned around the flesh in his mouth, and this time Kisame managed not to buck upwards and choke him again. It didn’t bother him - he had expected it, and it the feeling of Kisame’s hand alone was enough to send heat straight to his already straining erection - and he continued what he was doing, but then he jerked to a stop again when he felt Kisame’s finger start to press against his entrance. 

“Gn- ah!” Itachi gasped, pulling off of Kisame as he slowly slipped a finger inside him. “Kis… Kisame…” 

Without warning, Kisame pushing Itachi back down onto the couch and crouched over him, kissing him hard. Giving up all remaining semblance of self-restraint, Itachi moaned wantonly and writhed underneath him, feeling the press of the bigger man’s erection against his stomach. 

_ That’s… that’s going to be inside me _ , Itachi thought dimly, his body starting to tremble.  _ I can’t wait… it’s been too long… _

Kisame pulled back again, and Itachi took a deep breath to force his body to relax. It wouldn’t hurt as much if he was relaxed, he knew, and he had waited too long to mess this up. However, as the seconds ticked by and nothing happened, he frowned in confusion. 

“Kisame? What are you waiting for?” 

A deep inhale, then an exhale, just as deep. “Itachi… maybe we… shouldn’t do this.” 

Itachi couldn’t help it; his jaw dropped. “What?” 

“Well…” Kisame continued nervously, “I mean, like you said, you haven’t had any chance to have sex for the past eight years, and I don’t want you to regret jumping on me as your first option just to break that streak… or for you to feel like you had to do it to repay me for getting you out…” 

“No!” The word exploded out of Itachi like water out of a pressurized fire hose, and he felt Kisame flinch above him, but he didn’t care; he was completely and utterly pissed. “You don’t get to wind me up this much just to drop me right before the best part! I am a rational human being and with the mental capacity to decide when and with whom I have sex, so you don’t have to worry about me having stupid regrets! If you have them, you should have thought of that before you started taking my clothes off, because I am not going to let you stop now!” 

“Itachi-” 

“God fucking hell, Kisame, I swear to Christ that if you do not fuck me in the next minute, I will do it myself!” Itachi swore, then stuck two fingers in his mouth and coated them in saliva before reaching down and shoving them inside himself. He heard Kisame’s sharp intake of breath as he purposefully spread his legs wider and started stretching himself, throwing his head back with a moan as he hit something inside of him that sent shockwaves of pleasure through his whole body. 

“I… I get your point,” Kisame gasped out, grabbing Itachi’s hand and stopping its movements. “I take back what I said before. I think  _ that _ was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” 

“Glad you liked the show!” Itachi tried to snap, but the words lacked bite. “Now, if you please, I’d like to- gah!” 

He cut off with an unmanly yelp as his foot slipped off the side of the couch, and Itachi suddenly found himself floundering blindly for purchase. His lack of balance sent him tumbling towards the floor, and he would have hit the hard wooden floorboards if Kisame hadn’t caught him at the last moment. 

“There’s not enough room on the couch…” Kisame muttered, and Itachi’s ears perked up. 

“What did you say?” 

“But we can’t move,” Kisame continued under his breath as if he hadn’t even spoken, his grip on Itachi’s arm where he had caught him tightening. 

“What do you mean?” 

All of a sudden, Kisame came to a decision, and he hauled Itachi off the couch and forced him to his knees in front of it. 

“Kisame? What are you doing?” 

Kisame didn’t bother to respond. Instead, he bent Itachi over the edge of the couch and shoved two fingers inside of him without warning. 

“Ah- ahh! Kisame! What are… what are you-” 

“As much as I enjoyed watching you have fun all by yourself,” he growled predatorily in Itachi’s ear, “this is so much more rewarding.” 

Itachi couldn’t hold back the moan that was ripped from his unwilling throat. “You… you’re not just going to j-jerk me around again, are you? If you go any further - ah! - I’m not going to l-let you st-stop…. Nnh!” 

“I don’t plan on stopping,” Kisame promised, adding another finger to the two already stretching Itachi, causing him throw his head back and vocalize little meaningless noises as the sensation of being filled burned through his body like a shot of whiskey straight through his veins. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, was helpless to do anything except feel the blazing passion and heat running through him at the touch of Kisame’s hands. 

“Please… Kis… ame…” Itachi begged when he finally managed to form a complete thought, fisting the material of the couch in his grip as he let his head drop forward. “Please… I’m ready… I need it…” 

Kisame withdrew his fingers from inside Itachi, leaving him empty and wanting. Unable to stop himself, Itachi let out a whimper and allowed his neck to go limp, his cheek descending to rest on the rough fabric of the seat cushion. A new, hotter, wave of arousal swept through his body as he felt something thicker than Kisame’s fingers press against his opening. 

“Yes!” He moaned, trying to arch backwards and urge Kisame inside of him, but Kisame grabbed his hips and held him still. 

“Not… yet…” he gasped out into Itachi’s ear, leaning forward so their bodies connected, Itachi’s back to Kisame’s chest, from the waist up. 

Itachi barely held back a cry of frustration. “What are you waiting for?” 

“’M not waiting…” Kisame grunted. “’M just being careful…” 

With that, he started to press his hips forward, first very gently, then with more pressure, until Itachi felt him starting to split him wide open. 

“Ah-! Nn- ahhh! Kisame!” He moaned, feeling Kisame’s arms wrap around his torso in a show of solidarity as he pushed deeper inside him. 

“Am I hurting you?” Kisame asked gently, and Itachi quickly shook his head no, despite the wince that flashed across his face when Kisame’s girth stretched him uncomfortably wide. He just had to relax, he repeated to himself, and he would be fine. Taking a deep, shaky breath, Itachi filled his lungs with air before he let it out again, releasing all the remaining tension from his body as he did. The pain and discomfort he was feeling faded away until it was completely overshadowed by the pleasure that accompanied it. 

Itachi could tell when Kisame was seated fully inside him because the front of his pants-clad thighs brushed up against the back of his legs, tickling him with a strange friction. Gently, Kisame turned his head so that his lips were close to Itachi’s face, then he kissed him delicately on the cheek. “Do you want me to move?” 

Itachi’s breath caught in his throat, and he ground back against Kisame with a moan. Apparently that was all the encouragement Kisame needed, because he slowly withdrew until he was almost completely out of Itachi before slamming back into him with sudden unexpected force. 

The strength of the thrust drove Itachi’s cheek into the couch cushion, and he cried out at the delicious feeling of being filled without caution or remorse. Kisame slowly pulled back before thrusting forward with a second powerful snap of his hips, eliciting another cry from Itachi. 

“Kis… a… me-!” 

Kisame pushed Itachi’s knees further apart on the floor, then brought himself closer, so his knees were resting just inside Itachi’s, and started thrusting with a regular rhythm, reaching around to squeeze Itachi’s neglected erection and pump it in time to his thrusts. The rough fabric of his pants brushed up against Itachi’s bare sensitive ass with every deep, hot rush, and he bit the material of the couch to avoid whimpering at the sensation. His entire body felt hot, like it could explode at any moment, and from the way Kisame’s thrust were quickly growing irregular, he knew that neither one of them would last very much longer. 

Itachi came first, throwing his head back with a cry as all his muscles tensed in tandem and accidentally hitting Kisame in the face with the back of his head. A couple of sloppy thrusts later and Kisame tensed behind him as well, his arms going around Itachi’s torso and crushing him to his large chest as something hot exploded deep inside Itachi. They stayed like that for several minutes, frozen except for the shaking in their exerted limbs and their panting, oxygen-deprived lungs filling with air again and again, riding out the aftershocks of their mutual orgasms. 

Kisame broke the silence first, pulling out of Itachi tenderly and standing up behind him on unsteady legs. “Are you… are you good? I didn’t hurt you?” 

“Mm… mm.”  Itachi slowly eased his body upwards so his back straightened out and he was kneeling in front of the couch without bending over. A familiar twinge of pain ran up his spine, but it was nothing major. “Yeah, I’m fine. Honestly, I think my knees hurt worse than my ass does.” 

“You sure?” Kisame asked quietly, leaning down and pulling Itachi up from his knees, supporting him with a strong arm. 

“I’m  _ fine _ , Kisame.” An embarrassed blush worked its way across Itachi’s cheeks. “Actually, I’m more worried about you. Did I really just headbutt you in the face in the middle of having sex?” 

“Well, it was more like at the end of it… but yeah.” 

Itachi winced. “God, that’s embarrassing. Is your nose okay?” 

“Never better.” Kisame wrapped his arms around Itachi and pressed his nose against his neck, as if proving its wholeness. “See? Perfectly fine.” 

“No, I don’t see,” Itachi alluded pointedly, but looped his arms around Kisame’s neck all the same. The bigger man’s arms settled around his waist almost protectively, cradling him against his large form, and Itachi allowed one hand to slip down and rest on Kisame’s shoulder. “Kisame?” 

“Yes, Itachi?” 

“How much time do we have before the next car comes to pick us up?” 

“It’s coming tomorrow morning, so about twelve… no, eleven hours now.” 

“Good.” Itachi’s gentle hand turned into an iron grip on Kisame’s shoulder. “Because that was the best sex of my life, and I plan on repeating it as soon as possible- though preferably in a place that’s not so hard on the knees. Doesn’t this house have any, I don’t know, beds?” 

For a few seconds, Kisame was silent, dumbfounded, and then his hearty laugh rolled over the top of Itachi’s head, and he squeezed his blind lover companionably. “Of course this place has a bed; in fact, I’m pretty sure it had two.” 

“Well, we only need one,” Itachi whispered in a matter-of-fact voice that was completely at odds with his breathy tone, reaching up sightlessly to cup Kisame’s jaw. 

“That’s right,” Kisame replied, sweeping Itachi up into his arms and walking into the uncharted territory of the rest of the house. “We only need one.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

The homeless ghost had proven useful to Shikamaru, though only marginally so. He’d been able to point Shikamaru in the direction of a heavily ghost-populated area of town, which had in turn yielded him an encounter with innumerable unhelpful specters and one draugr who had managed to hold a decent conversation with him without snapping and trying to murder him - which had happened to him before, and not just with Lee’s new little pet sand monster. He’d learned early on in his life as a spirit that it was much less troublesome - and much easier to move around unhindered - if he didn’t tussle with every pissed off ghost that attacked him in a confused fury because he looked like their psychotic ex who had stabbed them eleven times with a carving knife or the random  _ masked _ mugger that had gotten away with their wallet and accidentally killed them in the process. 

Dealing with low-class ghosts was always a pain, but sometimes it was the only way to find the path to the top. 

In every place where humans gathered, ghosts were bound to gather as well, if only by virtue of the dead that piled up over the years, and just like human society, ghost society had its hierarchies as well. Usually those top spots were taken by the smarter or more reasonable draugrs, or if the city was lucky enough, phantoms, or if they were unlucky enough, wraiths. They were kind of like a mayor or governor for a district of ghosts, though not in so many words; they were often the strongest or had some other redeeming feature that put them above the rest like charisma or intellect, unofficially elected, and nobody remembered their names or paid any attention to them until they were needed. 

In Konoha, this position had been occupied by Naruto and himself, though he preferred more often than not to operate solely from the shadows and let Naruto take the brunt of the visual aspect of the position, with the other phantoms as the second level of command. But Konoha, despite being a very old town with generation of ghost culture, not to mention Naruto’s preservation power that kept ghosts around longer, was still a small town in comparison to a city like Seattle. Shikamaru would have to work his way up if he wanted to find out who was the most powerful ghost in the city.  

That being said, he was fairly close now, he was sure of it. The draugr had lead him to another, older and more senile, draugr, who in turn had lead him to a figure of remarkable clarity, who, finally, had given him a useful tip: over the years, there had been many jumpers in the city. Where better to draw attention to oneself for such an act than at a nationally renowned landmark? 

The figure’s words had been cryptic, but her meaning was instantly clear to Shikamaru. Jumpers: what else could that refer to but the ghost of someone who had committed suicide by jumping off a building or some other high place? 

And in Seattle, what landmark was more nationally renowned than the Space Needle? 

 

⚞⚟

 

“...Neji? Are you alright?” 

Neji was torn from his thoughts by the concerned voice of his cousin, and he felt a rush of heat to his face as he snapped out of what he belatedly realized was a unintentioned daydream about his dream the night before. “What? Sorry, Hinata. I wasn’t paying attention.” 

“I asked you if you were alright,” Hinata repeated with the tiniest amount of reproach in her timid voice, the equivalent of an annoyed shout from anyone else. “What’s going on with you, Neji? You’ve been spacing out all morning, and you’re blushing right now!” 

“I’m not blushing!” Neji protested automatically, even though he could feel the heat in his cheeks himself. “I’m fine, Hinata. Nothing’s going on.” 

“You’re acting strange!” Hinata protested, even going as far as to lean forward and press a palm against his forehead. “You weren’t awake this morning when I came, and there’s a full glass of water on the counter that looks like it’s been there since last night! There’s no way any of these things would be normal for you, or any way you could expect me not to notice! Are you sick? Do you have a fever?” 

She was right, about everything, Neji thought as he stared into his cousin’s face, closer than normal to his own because she was leaning towards him, and he couldn’t help but smile indulgently at her. “You know, Hinata, I do believe that’s one of the longest speeches I’ve ever heard you say. And you didn’t stutter at all.” 

Hinata blushed at the compliment but didn’t back down. “I’m serious, Neji! You’re not acting normally! Are you sure you’re not sick? Are you overtired from all the work Father gives you? Upset about something that happened in that weird little town we visited? Just tell me, Neji!” 

Through he tried to hide it, the words “that weird little town” brought a twist of something to Neji’s face, and Hinata, perceptive as a Hyuuga should be, caught it. 

“I knew something wasn’t right when we left! Something happened that you didn’t tell me, right? Please, I want to know! I want to be able to help you like you’ve helped me, Neji, but I can’t do that if you shut me out!” 

“Hinata-” Neji started, reaching for her, but she pushed away from him and clenched her hand over her heart. 

Looking down into her lap, Hinata admitted, “I’m powerless next to you, Neji. You’re older than me, stronger than me, and smarter than me.” Her gaze snapped up, boring directly into Neji’s. “You’ve always protected me, no matter what, so I want to be able to the same for you! If there’s something bothering you, tell me about it! I’m not a helpless little girl anymore!” 

_ Not a helpless little girl anymore, _ the dark part of Neji’s mind scoffed.  _ Not in my eyes, you’re not, but the same can’t be said for the elders. That’s why I still hate you, even as I love you… Hinata, you really have no idea about our family.  _

Unable to hold Hinata’s impassioned gaze for long, Neji looked away. “I appreciate it, Hinata, really, I do, but there’s also some things that can’t be fixed with just words. I might be in a little bit of a… tricky situation right now, and the less you know about it, the safer you’ll be. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you for now.” When he finished speaking, Neji’s eyes darted back to Hinata to gauge her reaction. 

For a moment, Hinata looked like she would argue with him, then she abruptly nodded. “I understand, Neji. You’re still trying to protect me. But one day, I’ll be strong enough to protect you, so you better watch out for me then!” 

The bold words said in Hinata’s voice, quiet but without a tremble or a stutter, brought the touch of a smile to Neji’s lips. “You bet I will.” 

Hinata sighed lightly. “You still think of me as a child, don’t you, Neji?” 

The smile disappeared from Neji’s face as if it was a hastily scrawled swear on a whiteboard erased by a teacher giving a classroom full of too-innocent faces a stern glare. “Because you are a child.”  _ And you will remain one. Stay a child, Hinata. Away from their influence. _

Hinata’s hands clenched just the slightest bit in her lap. “I'm not a child anymore, Neji; I'm sixteen-” 

“Which is still legally a child,” he interrupted calmly, despite the chaos in his chest. “Don't be in such a hurry to grow up. I'd give up a lot of things to be able to go back to when I was your age.”  _ To before I knew.  _

Unexpectedly, his words caused Hinata to giggle, breaking the tension in the room. “You're such an old man, Neji, and you're only five years older than I am! Young people shouldn't wish that they were still young because they  _ are _ still young.” 

“Perhaps you're right,” Neji sighed, looking up to the sky, hidden by his ceiling. He was suddenly struck by the wistful urge to see the clouds he knew were hanging above them. “Perhaps I am an old man.” 

“I didn't mean it like that, Neji,” Hinata giggled softly at him, her earlier tone of intensity gone. 

“It’s alright,” Neji responded with a smile, gently reaching over to lay a hand on top of her head. “I know what you meant.” He gave a glance at the clock on the wall to see the time. “It’s later than I thought it was. The elders will be wanting you back soon. See you back here tomorrow?” 

“Absolutely!” Hinata jumped up and embraced Neji before flying to the door, all signs of their verbal altercation disappearing like a snake’s useless shed skin. “And I’ll get it tomorrow, I know I will! Just you wait!” 

“Don’t forget your umbrella!” Neji called after her, standing up and striding to the door to close it after her as she grabbed her umbrella, gave him one last hug, and snapped it open to protect herself from the rain drizzling from the sky, disappearing down the street. 

That morning had been interesting, with both highs and lows in Hinata’s confidence, and the abrupt switch between them and other emotions. What had set her into such a state of emotional flux? Neji would have to ask her about when he next saw her. Because she still lived in the main Hyuuga household and he had gotten a separate apartment as soon as he’d turned eighteen, Neji had to pay close attention to her emotions to surmise how she was being treated, rather than being able to witness it firsthand. That was the only drawback to being so far away from the family, though he did still spend a lot of time with Hinata. 

With a sigh, Neji closed the door and glanced at the clock again. Because he’d slept in that morning, the work he’d intended to have finished by now was still undone, and he’d have to move quickly if he wanted to get it done in time to go to his orchestra rehearsal this afternoon. With a sigh, he went and sat down at his computer and pulled up his email. 

His job was a boring but important one. While the Uchihas, the Hyuugas’ sister clan, preferred to respond to troublesome ghosts once they became problems, the Hyuugas didn’t have that luxury because their powers lay in higher observation and did not include the offensive powers the Sharingan provided. As such, they preferred to keep a vigilant watch over much of their territory and nip potential problems in the bud before they became real issues. It was fantastically efficient way of diminishing ghost-related problems, but it also came with the added burden of much more organizational work, the majority of which fell to Neji. 

Neji was what was known as a File Operator. The job was given to him because of his standing in the clan - in the main family, his uncle’s family, but not of that family - and was one of the most important non-field active positions a Hyuuga could get. It also meant that it was one of the most coveted positions, and his position as the File Operator for Seattle, the city the Hyuuga family called their home base, made it even more so. Neji knew this, knew the family Elders had given him the position for the sole reason of seeing if he could handle both the pressure of a high-stress job and the doubt and envy of his fellow Hyuuga. 

After a few hours, Neji had all the reports organized except for the one that had come in the night before, which he figured could wait until the evening. He stood up, stretching a little, and moved to the door to find his raincoat and umbrella. He would have to leave now if he wanted to make the rehearsal on time. 

Just as he was about to open the door, however, a sudden burst of power swept through him, stopping Neji cold. The surge was weak, as if a pulse of a strong aura had been given off a mile or so away and had lessened over distance, but it held the unmistakable tinge of shadows. It was gone as soon as it had come, but Neji didn’t doubt this time that he had felt Shikamaru’s distinct mark in the powerful energy. 

_ What is he doing? _ Neji thought with sudden clarity, a cold hand gripping his heart.  _ What if someone else feels him, alive or dead? What if they come after him? _

But maybe, he realized with a strange sinking feeling in his stomach, that was the point. 

Not knowing why he did it, Neji turned smartly on his heel and walked back to his computer, opening up the single remaining report and reading it. It was only one report, after all, and sometimes time could be of the essence in these cases. He opened it, quickly read it, and then filed it with all the other reports. 

See. That was easy. 

Still not feeling any better, however, Neji stood up and again walked to his door. He would be a couple of minutes late to the rehearsal, but he doubted anyone would mind much. 

 


	3. Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Kisame make plans for their future while Shikamaru goes on the search for some information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a condensation of several chapters from the first version of this story, and at the end of it is another... let's just say... rather indulgent scene ;) It wasn't intended to be this close to the other one, but again, it's my story and I do what I want, and what I want is sexy ShikaNeji! (I hope it's what you want, too.) 
> 
> If it isn't your thing and you're just here for the plot (which I totally respect) you can skip from when the chess game ends to the next page break.

⚞⚟

 

When Itachi woke the next morning, his whole body was sore, but the first thing that went through his mind was:  _ so worth it. _ Carefully, he stretched one arm at the shoulder, then the other, extending them above the nest of sheets and blankets he was curled up in. He shivered as his bare skin came in contact with the chill air before he rotated his upper torso to test the tension in his back. 

Well, he’d had worse after-mornings. 

The blankets at his back suddenly shifted, and a thick arm came around Itachi’s waist, pulling him back to nestle against a warm, muscular chest. “Mn… stop wriggling, Itachi…”  

Sighing with contentment, Itachi allowed Kisame to kidnap his body once more, letting his head fall backward until rested on Kisame’s collarbone. “Good morning, Kisame. Oh, wait, is it morning? I can’t tell.” 

Back at the hospital, Itachi had had a clock that had been specially made for him with auditory tones for each hour and fifteen minute, five minute, and one minute intervals, but without it or any other auditory clues of the breaking dawn, he had no idea whether it was morning or not. 

“Go back to sleep, Itachi…” Kisame groaned, and Itachi could almost see the sleepily disgruntled expression on his face. 

But Itachi would not be deterred in his mission. “Not until you tell me if it’s morning or not,” he announced, poking Kisame gently but forcefully in the chest. 

“Alright, alright. Geez, how can you be so awake at this hour…?” There was a brief pause, as if Kisame was cracking his eyes open to gauge the amount of sunlight filtering into the room. “It’s morning, but barely.” The bed shifted slightly under Kisame’s weight as he lifted his head a few inches off the pillow, then bounced again as he let it fall back down. “6:12. That morning enough for you?” 

“Morning enough to wish you a good morning,” Itachi concluded, reaching up to touch Kisame’s face, his thumb resting on the side of his nose, and using that as a reference point to lean up and press a quick kiss to his lips. “Good morning, Kisame.” 

“Hmph.” Slowly, the lips under Itachi’s melted from a grumpy early-morning scowl to an indulgent smile. “I suppose it is, if I get a wakeup call like that.” 

“That’s the spirit.” Itachi pulled back a little and sighed again with contentment. “I don’t ever want to leave,” he confessed nestling closer to Kisame’s side. 

“We don’t have to get up; not for a little while, anyway. It’ll be nine or ten before they get here, so we have some time.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” Itachi let his hand ghost over Kisame’s chest, trailing up his side before landing at his shoulder. “I don’t want leave from here. Next to you. And not just because I feel like I need to repay you, or something like that. I just… want to stay with you. Forever.” 

“That’s just the endorphins from finally being free talking,” Kisame joked gently, smoothing Itachi’s hair back from his forehead. “You’ll get sick of me soon enough, and then you’ll rue the fact that you bound yourself to me for the rest of your life.” 

“Hmmm… Somehow I doubt it.” Itachi pushed his torso up from the bed, feeling the sheet travel down his back again, the chill air that replaced its warm presence sending a shiver down his spine. “When did you say the people were coming? Nine?”

“Yeah; what about it?” 

“Then we should get up and ready.” Gritting his teeth at the soreness in his back, Itachi swung his legs over the side of the bed. Holy mother of ice cubes, was it cold. Itachi supposed this was what came of living in a carefully regulated environment for the past eight years. 

Kisame gave an annoyed noise at the loss of contact and the sudden rush of cold air in its place. “Why? They won’t be here for another three hours… Come back to bed, Itachi…” 

“No,” Itachi corrected, stretching his overused and abused muscles at the edge of the bed, “we only have a little less than three hours until they get here, max. If they’re decent at their job, they’ll get here earlier than that. These people are your men now, Kisame, whether you want to think of them that way or not, and that means you need to appear a certain way to them. People will follow anyone unwillingly, but for them to follow you willingly, you need respect, and there’s two ways to get that: through love, and through fear. I’m assuming your father commanded that respect through fear, so they’ll probably expect the same from you, and if you want to change that - or even if you don’t - you’ll need to start by making a good first impression today.” 

Stunned silence resounded from the bed. “Where did all that come from? Did you have some secret past as a mob boss that you haven’t told me about?” 

Itachi couldn’t hide the small smile that stole across his lips from Kisame’s hidden compliment. “Didn’t you ever any political texts in school? I was a medical student when I was incarcerated, but even I read people like Locke and Machiavelli. I also learned a lot of things about being a leader from my father. He was grooming me to be the next owner of the hospital, before…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. 

“Before you were kept there as a patient instead,” Kisame finished for him, reaching up to lay a warm hand on his shoulder, chasing away the residual chill of the cool morning air. “So, you know a lot about how to be a good leader?” 

“Yeah,” Itachi responded, turning his face downwards, towards his lap. “I was a good leader- or would have made one, at least… once upon a time. But the skills are still there.” 

“Really?” Kisame inched closer, pulling himself up so that he could cast an arm around Itachi’s shoulders and fit his chest to the smaller back in front of him. “And do you intend to share said skills?” 

“What, you didn’t think that I was going to freeload off you for the rest of my life, did you, Kisame?” Itachi asked in mock horror. “Of course I’ll help you! We are going to lead the best, most feared gang in the entire- wait, where are we going?” 

“New York,” Kisame said with a laugh, pressing a kiss to the side of Itachi’s neck. “The gang’s based in New York City.” 

“Then it’ll be the best and most feared gang on de east side of de Mississippi,” Itachi announced, adding in a little bit of an Italian accent at the end and earning a second chuckle from Kisame. 

“I think you’re a little too excited about this.” 

“Of course I’m excited!  _ Every _ little boy has a phase when he wants to be a badass Mafia boss like the Godfather!” 

“Hmm?” Kisame poked Itachi in the side none-too-gently. “You’re going to be a badass Mafia boss?” 

“No,  _ you’re _ going to be the badass Mafia boss, and I’m going to be the one manipulating the whole scene from the shadows, so when the final Mafia boss is defeated in the video game, he jumps out and becomes the  _ final  _ final boss and completely smashes the player, after which he precedes to rez the Mafia boss and start the whole cycle over again!” 

“I’m confused as to whether you think we’re in a movie or a video game, Itachi…” 

“Both! Neither! Who cares!” Itachi turned around and poked Kisame’s face cheekily, his own face stretched in a giddy grin. “It’s insane to me that this is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life! Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, hands down.” 

Kisame’s hand on Itachi’s shoulder tightened almost imperceptibly. “Even seeing your brother again?” 

The words gave Itachi pause, but not for long, and he shook his head to dispel the thoughts threatening to take over his brain. “Sasuke… I was happy to see him again, but our lives separated eight years ago. We can’t ever go back to the way we were, no matter how much we want to. Too much time has passed…” 

“Do you really think that? That’s the truth?” 

Itachi felt his shoulders hunch slightly, then the straightened them and forced his face upward. “Yes, that’s what I really think. I have a new life now, and I would do it an injustice by dwelling on the past.” He turned around with a smile and rested his hand on Kisame’s arm. “Now, we have to get you up and presentable to make the best first impression you can on your new subordinates. You wouldn’t happen to have a tie around here, would you?” 

 

⚞⚟

 

The Space Needle was the most iconic building in Seattle, surrounded by a sea of other iconic buildings and landmarks. Years - decades - ago, back when it had been built for the World’s Fair in 1962, it had been an architectural wonder, a beacon of humankind’s imagination and a testament to her ingenuity, and - briefly - the tallest building on the Pacific Northwest Coast. It had since been one-upped in height by several other buildings, including some in Seattle itself, but by virtue of its unique and unmistakable design, it still captured the minds and attentions of all who saw it. 

The tall spire on top of the Space Needle - the “needle” itself - extends into the sky like a small child reaching for the unreachable stars; a remnant of the nation-wide interest in the sky from the space race. The metal rod, far above the surrounding buildings, embarks into a more turbulent layer of the atmosphere, buffeted by winds that don’t dare dive too close to the ground for fear of retribution from the gentler winds that make the area their domain. 

Perched on top of the needle like some kind of shadowy bird of prey, an eagle of the night, Shikamaru felt like a god surveying the domain given him to look after. 

The sensation was addicting. Now Shikamaru could understand why people felt the urge to hurl themselves off the top of it. 

As much as he enjoyed the giddying feeling of supremacy, however, it was getting a little too late for his tastes, and Shikamaru had a date to keep. It would be troublesome to call out whatever ghosts lived in the area, but even more troublesome to wait for them to come out on their own. Sighing, he stood up on the point of the Space Needle, balancing on the tip with one foot, and sent a blast of his aura rippling through the spectral plane on all sides of him. 

Far away, a flock of birds on a rooftop took flight, scattering into the distant horizon. 

Shikamaru settled his arms across his chest and turned his gaze downward, searching for a presence rising up to meet him. With a call like the one he’d given, he suspected he wouldn’t have to wait long. If it had him who’d felt a blast like that, he would have viewed it as a challenge. 

As the seconds ticked by and no one appeared in front of Shikamaru to challenge him, a frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. Had his call not been loud enough? He doubted it; it had probably been strong enough that Neji, over a mile away, could have felt it. Had he misinterpreted the figure’s words? Again, it was unlikely; Shikamaru trusted his deductive logic more than any other skill he possessed. What, then? Why were the spirits at and around the Space Needle - and he knew they were there; he could feel their weak auras cringing away from his presence - flinching away from his call like frightened villagers in a poor town shying away from a totalitarian government’s corrupt tax collector? 

The answer, when Shikamaru stopped to think about it, was simple - that the ghost he had called was strong enough to frighten the general ghost population of the area, and, judging by the length of time it was taking them to respond to the challenge, they were planning on toying with him. 

Well, that didn’t bother Shikamaru. If that was the case, he would just have to fight back in the same manor with his greatest asset: his mind. Redoubling his concentration efforts, Shikamaru extended his rage of closely watched space further around him and downwards. Where would the challenged spirit come from? Directly below? Behind? Would they, instead, force Shikamaru to come to them? 

As is often the case, even for a mind as sharp as Shikamaru’s, it is impossible to predict and prepare for every single of an infinite many possibilities. As his attention was focused toward the ground, Shikamaru felt a sharp spike in spectral energy behind and directly above him racing towards him with impressive speed, then creating a physical force not unlike a hand at his back. The push was just enough to cause him to overbalance and pitch forward, his feet leaving the solid metal tip of the needle. 

_ So this is what you planned… _ he thought almost disparagingly, turning his head slightly to gauge the distance between himself and his attacker before making his body instinctively corporeal and feeling gravity take over his suddenly heavy form.  _ You wanted to displace me from my perch to acclaim your own supremacy. Well, if that’s the way you want to play… _

Quick as a striking snake, Shikamaru called up a shadow and bound the hand that had pushed him to his own wrist. The last thing he saw before he plunged downwards was the shocked face of his assailant as she was pulled down after him in a free fall. 

 

⚞⚟

 

Neji walked into the rehearsal room just as everyone else was getting ready to play, some shuffling chairs and piling music onto stands while others blew air into their instruments to warm up before the rehearsal began. As he quietly slipped to the back to find the case for his tenor saxophone, hoping no one would notice his tardiness, he heard a loud voice shout his name from across the room. 

“Neji! Glad you could join us today!” 

_ So much for slipping in unnoticed. _

“Hello, Konohamaru,” Neji sighed as he opened his case and fished around for his reed, hoping he could quickly clamp it between his teeth before having to converse too much with his “friend”. 

Unfortunately, he had no such luck, and Konohamaru came over to lean against the wall with his trumpet, deliberately opening up his spit valve and blowing condensation from the inside of the instrument into Neji’s case. “You don’t normally make the afternoon rehearsals, Neji, just the evening ones every other week. What’s the special occasion today?” 

“I finished my work early,” he responded tonelessly, fitting his saxophone together and fixing the harness strap that would assist in holding the heavy instrument up around his neck. “Thought I’d grace you with my presence today and add something constructive to the rehearsal, unlike some members who do nothing but goof off all the time,  _ Konohamaru. _ ” 

Konohamaru made a  _ who, me? _ face and leaned closer to Neji. “Whatever, dude. Nice hair, by the way. It’s nice to see you let go of the uber-gay style for your regular normal-amount-of gay one. What, was your boyfriend afraid you were going to show him up-?” 

Moegi pushed Konohamaru out of the way, effectively silencing him. “Oh, quit it, Konohamaru. Leave Neji alone! You know he could probably have you killed in your sleep if you keep teasing him like that.” 

Snorting gently, Neji clamped his reed in between his teeth to soften it so he wouldn’t have to answer, neither confirming nor denying the claim. 

“Sheesh, Moegi, Neji knows I was just messing with him.” He reached out to touch the top of Neji’s head, but at a glare from his intended target, thought better of it and just gave him a thumbs up. “Right, Neji?” 

Ignoring him once again, Neji picked up his saxophone and clipped it to the straps around his neck. From across the room, Asuma, the drummer for the jazz orchestra, tapped the cymbal a few times to get their attention. 

“The day ain’t getting any longer, guys! Let’s get this rehearsal started!” 

Quickly, Neji took his seat, Moegi following him to sit next to him and Konohamaru taking his seat in the back, having been banished from the front row since almost the first day of rehearsal years earlier. The song order for the day was written on a large whiteboard propped up at the front of the room, and Neji hastily shuffled his music in the right order as Kurenai, the keyboardist, played a few notes for everyone to tune, then Asuma hit out a steady beat. 

“Everyone ready? One, two, three!” 

 

⚞⚟

 

The wind from the fall rushed past Shikamaru’s ears, deafening him to any cries his former-assailant/now-captive may or may not have made. He was content to let gravity take control of his body, confident in his ability to make himself incorporeal just before impact, thus avoiding the pain of colliding against the ground, but he suspected that the ghost now bound to him - the former “jumper” - having already felt the pain of smashing against hard, unforgiving concrete once before, would be more leery of experiencing it again, corporeal or not. But since Shikamaru refused to stop his own fall himself, the jumper would have to stop his momentum in addition to her own if she didn’t want to be dragged down after him. 

Numbers quickly flashed through Shikamaru’s mind, calculating values at an astounding rate. Since the Space Needle is 184 meters tall, the average acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared, and the terminal velocity of the average human body in free fall is approximately 53 meters per second, using the laws of kinetics, terminal velocity will be reached in approximately five and a half seconds at 143 meters from the top, or approximately three quarters of the way down the tower. Factoring that into account and then using 53 meters per second as the velocity for the rest of the fall, Shikamaru would hit the bottom in approximately… 

Three...

Two…

On-

Just before Shikamaru would have let go of his corporeality to avoid hurting himself on the ground, he felt the shadow handcuff binding him to the jumper suddenly tense upwards, bringing him to an abrupt, almost painful halt. Casting a quick glance downwards, he saw that they were hovering about twenty feet above the ground, and a tiny wave of self-directed irritation swept through him. He’d estimated that they’d be a little closer to the ground, between five and ten feet, but he supposed he couldn’t be too put out about it. For lightening fast algebraic calculations done in his head, the margin of error wasn’t that bad. 

Turning his face upwards, he cast a smirk at the woman who had caught him, releasing his corporeality so that his weight was no longer dragging her arm down. 

“Thanks for the hand,” he remarked dispassionately, floating up to stand in the air directly in front of her and locking her surprised eyes with his own iron solid gaze. “I apologize for the unorthodox way of calling you here, but I wanted to ask you a few questions.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

“Alright, I think that was the last one. Good work today, everyone!” Kurenai called from the rhythm section, unplugging her electric keyboard from the wall. “Remember to put next Saturday's gig on your calendars, and  _ don’t be late! _ Otherwise have a good rest of your week, and I’ll see you all here again next week.” 

Neji nodded at the woman’s words, though he knew she wasn’t looking at him. Everyone else in the orchestra understood his situation of not always being able to come to rehearsals because of his family because they were often in the same position, but with work, but he always tried to make every gig they played at, no matter the excuse he had to make for the Elders. The most daring one was begging off of a reunion on the excuse of an imaginary cold so he could play at a free concert they did at the behest of a charity organization that put on different kinds of enrichment programs for students in public education schools. 

During the rehearsal, his phone, which he always kept on his stand next to his music, buzzed several times, but only with a text from Sasuke that he hadn’t bothered to read fully and a few more work emails, so Neji hadn’t bothered to check them at the time. After returning his saxophone to the case, he leaned against the wall and opened the text from Sasuke. 

_ Sorry again about calling you last night when I was upset. I’ve calmed down a lot since then, so thank you for listening to me. Apparently the police put together evidence that Itachi was assisted in his escape by the man Father had hired to be his nurse. Seems crazy, right? I met him briefly when I went to visit Itachi, and he looked alright to me, if a little unsuited to his occupation. I swear the guy had muscles on top of his muscles. All I can think about, though, is what someone like that could stand to gain by pulling a ridiculous stunt like that. He’s a wanted man now, and I doubt he wouldn’t think something like that through.  _

_ Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’m better now, and it looks like Father no longer suspects me. Father’s got the police on high alert, but they think it’s highly likely that they’re out of the city by now. They got visual confirmation on a car heading south, so the police think they’re heading for the Mexican border, maybe. Honestly, I kind of hope they are. I was disappointed at first because I wouldn’t be able to see Itachi again, but now I think I’m at least a little glad he’s free, if that’s what he wants. I just wish I could have gotten the chance to give him a proper goodbye.  _

_ Sorry again for dumping all this on you. Hope your life is a little less hectic than mine right now, and remember, you get a free panic call now that I hit you up. It’s only fair.  _

Neji snorted through his nose disbelievingly. If only the only thing he had to deal with was a missing brother. His problems included a cousin, an uncle, and a phantom. He quickly typed a message back to Sasuke. 

_ I already said not to worry about it. Everything you’re feeling will get easier in time. Trust me on this; I know from experience.  _

He briefly debated whether to tell Sasuke about Shikamaru’s sudden reappearance in his life, but decided against it in the end. There were some things that should be kept private. 

_ I doubt I’ll be using the “panic call” anytime soon, but thanks anyway, _ he closed with instead.  _ Hinata says hi. _

Neji really had no way of knowing if Hinata would have thought to say hi to Sasuke, but she had asked about him once or twice in the past week, so he figured it was safe enough to include it. 

Just as he hit the send button, Neji felt a bump against his shoulder and looked down to find Moegi standing next to him, rising up on her tiptoes and trying to crane her neck and see what he had been typing. Flushing slightly at being caught, she settled back down on her heels and flashed him an embarrassed smile. 

“Who are you texting?” 

“His boyfriend!” Konohamaru called from across the room before Neji got the chance to answer the question. “Isn’t that right, Neji?” 

If it had been a glass in Neji’s hand instead of a phone in a protective case, it was likely that it would shattered in his tightening grip. Usually he had a pretty high threshold for Konohamaru’s tasteless gay jokes that undermined his (potential) sexuality, but with the events of the day before and last night’s particularly vivid dream (and, who was he kidding, everything he had done and thought for the two weeks in Konoha and the week since coming back home), they were starting to hit home more and more, and that was irritating him. 

Before he could jump in and give Konohamaru a verbal lashing - or maybe just punch him; ooh, that would feel good - a red blur formed in front of Neji’s vision, and he blinked as he realized that it was Moegi, having jumped in front of him with her finger threateningly outstretched. 

“Quit it, Konohamaru!” She bellowed, pointing menacingly at him. “You have a maximum quota of one potentially homophobic joke per chapter, and you’ve already used yours for this one! Leave Neji alone!” 

“Homophobic?!” Konohamaru asked incredulously, placing a hand over his heart in mock hurt. “I’m pained that you think so little of my moral character that you would think I could even consider something so callus! It doesn’t really bother Neji, does it, Neji? You wouldn’t deprive me of my harmless little attempts at comic relief, now would you, Neji? After all, they are my only redeeming reasons for existing in this story.” 

Taking a deep breath and forcing it out slowly through his nose, Neji forced his fist on his phone to loosen its death grip. Very deliberately, he said, “The first time you pulled that stunt, it was barely passably funny, and now that the joke has dragged on this long, it has degraded into an unfunny gag that amuses nobody but yourself, and certainly not the people reading this for ‘entertainment’. So, Konohamaru, at least for the sake of your audience, if nothing else, please just stop.” Both Konohamaru and Moegi stared at him open-mouthed as he finished, and Neji allowed a small smirk to creep across his lips. It felt good to know that he still had the ability to make  _ some _ people speechless. “Also, I could just fuck you up. So cut the shit, Konohamaru. Or next time, I won’t ignore your tasteless comments like I have in past.” 

The ringer on Neji’s phone went off, and he cast a quick glance at in the face of his dumbfounded friends’ faces. “I have to take this; it’s work. See you all next week.” 

And with that, he turned on his heel strode out of the room without even pausing to put on his raincoat, leaving behind a stupefied Konohamaru and an almost-as-stupefied Moegi staring after him as if he’d sprouted an extra head. Across the room, Asuma cracked up from where he was pulling away his drum set, laughing so hard that he almost dropped a cymbal on the floor. 

“Man, did he get you good! I told you that if you kept pushing his buttons, that kid would explode in your face someday! He’s a ticking time bomb who resets his timer to a different countdown every ten seconds just for the hell of it.” 

But neither Moegi nor Konohamaru were paying much attention to him. Instead, their minds were occupied by something far more intriguing. 

“Neji swore…” Moegi whispered, the syllables rolling slowly off her tongue, as if it was relearning how to form them. “A fuck  _ and  _ a shit…. Neji  _ never _ swears…” 

“Is it just me, or did Neji’s touchiness on a joke that I’ve been playing off for years just escalate exponentially, and for no apparent reason?” Konohamaru asked once his mouth managed to hinge itself back into working order and recover enough to make coherent sounds. “Please tell me you saw it too and that wasn’t just a lack-of-sleep induced hallucination.” 

“It’s not just you; I saw it too,” Moegi confirmed, a calculating gleam creeping into her eyes. “But what might have caused this sudden rise in said touchiness, and for that…  _ particular _ subject? What do you say we have ourselves a little… investigation?” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Neji was already sitting in the middle of his bedroom floor in his ridiculous old-fashioned pajamas when Shikamaru ghosted through the wall, his tattered army coat flapping after him in a nonexistent breeze, waiting for him behind a chess board with a rather sour expression. 

“You’re late,” he said crossly, his gaze flicking down impatiently to the board in front of him as if to accent the single white pawn that had already been moved forward. 

“Only by two and a half minutes,” Shikamaru scoffed gently, settling down lightly on the opposite side of the chessboard. “Why, a watch wound slightly different might be less accurate than that.” 

“Nobody uses watches that wind up anymore, Shikamaru. Nowadays, everything is digital, and everyone’s phone shows the same time.” He jerked his chin at the chessboard. “Your move.” 

Letting his hand drift over the heads of the black pieces arrayed before him like the platoons of an army, Shikamaru allowed his head to fall forward to hide the smile on his lips as he finally selected a pawn and slid it forward two spaces. “Not if you change it manually, Neji.” 

“But you can also manually change the time on an analogue watch as well, so that would apply to your argument too.” Neji picked up a knight and set it down again in a different position, the sharp click of the plastic base against the wooden board ricocheting off the walls of the room like an angrily misfired bullet. “This conversation is getting us nowhere, Shikamaru. Where were you this afternoon? And what was with that pulse of spectral energy I felt earlier?” 

Shikamaru smiled blandly at him, hiding his purpose behind a mask of amusement. “What pulse?” 

“Nevermind,” Neji said with a sigh, deflating slightly as he pushed another piece forward. “I knew you wouldn’t admit to it, anyways. But just know that you’re not fooling anyone, Shikamaru. I’ve grown accustomed enough to your aura to be able to recognize a blast of that magnitude, even as far away as it was. What was going on? Did you pick a fight with every local draugr that flies under our radar at the same time, or what?” 

This time, the grin that stretched Shikamaru’s face was a true smile of amusement, and not a mask. “Something like that.” 

  
  


_ Shikamaru smiled disarmingly at the woman in front of him, her wrist still bound to his with a shackle made of shadow. She was plain but not unpretty, her face clean of makeup and blemishes, and her hair, long and brown, billowing around her head in sleek waves as if it was still acting out the final memories of her body as it fell from the tower. The color, darker than a dirty blond but not quite as dark as the rich tones of a nutrient-rich loam, reminded him strangely of Neji’s hair; if one looked closer, the texture looked similar, as well.  _

_ He was broken out of his musings by a sharp tug on the shadow cuff linking their two wrists. “What do you want with me? Let go!” She shouted furiously as she gave another tug, her fervent eyes catching his attention with their blatant hatred and beautiful color.  _

_ A color so unique, he’d only seen it twice before: in Neji’s eyes, and in the eyes of his younger cousin, Hinata.  _

_ “You’re a Hyuuga,” he exclaimed, momentarily misplacing his agenda at the thought.  _

_ The woman’s pale eyes, the same telltale sign that had given her identity away, narrowed at Shikamaru’s exclamation, her suspicion visibly escalating. “How do you recognize my clan, rouge draugr? Be quick about the answer, or I will expel you from this city by force.”  _

_ “Rogue draugr? I am offended by your unjust classification, ma’am. I am, in fact, a phantom, and your eyes unmistakably brand you as a Hyuuga. I am intimately familiar with another of your family, and so could not help but make the logical conclusion that you must have been one as well.”  _

_ “Phantom…?” If possible, the woman’s eyes narrowed even further. “If a phantom of your level has been in this city for long enough to be as old as you are, I would have found you before now. Why are you here, and why do you claim intimacy with the Hyuuga clan?”  _

_ “Why, I’m here for a polite little chat!” Shikamaru exclaimed, holding his arms out wide, charm oozing from his very pores. The shackle forced her to mirror the movement, drawing out her arm from her side. “And as for my Hyuuga friend…” His polite demeanor disappeared, leaving behind only a ruthless coldness in his eyes. “Well, I don’t see how that’s any business of yours, considering that you’re dead… and he’s still alive.”  _

_ “Still alive…?” The woman’s eyes abruptly widened, and she tugged vainly against the shadow holding her captive. “Let me go, you damn liar!”  _

_ “Liar?” Suddenly, Shikamaru’s polite facade was back, and he sent a winning smile in the direction of the woman. “Why, you wound me again! Everything I’ve told you today has been the truth! I’m friends with a Hyuuga boy, I’m just here for a little chat, and I’m nothing more than a phantom who’s wandered a little far from home.”  _

_ “That, by definition, is impossible,” the woman snapped back, but Shikamaru gainsaid her with a guileless expression.  _

_ “Nothing is, by definition, impossible, ma’am,” he said politely, bowing his head forward slightly. “Besides, I believe it’s the heart, the intention and emotion behind something, that matters most, not the physical form. Don’t you agree?”  _

_ “Ha!” The woman scoffed, looking his attire up and down distastefully. “What would a country hick like you know about impossibilities or intention? I’ll admit, you have some raw power, but you’re just a kid who bit off more than he could chew by walking into a situation he had no control over.”  _

_ With a sigh, Shikamaru turned his face upwards, towards the sky. The clouds covered the whole expanse from horizon to horizon like a thick grey blanket, hiding the blue beyond. All in all, Seattle had horrible whether for cloud-gazing. “You know,” he remarked almost to himself without giving the woman in front of him a single glance, “sometimes I wonder why I get so disappointed when I set people up to underestimate me, and they fall beautifully into my trap. It’s almost not fair. I mean, with it being me, and all.”  _

_ “What are you blathering on about?” The woman sneered testily, yanking her trapped wrist one more time in an attempt to free it from the shadows that bound it. “Let go of me, you freak, or I’ll give you such a beating you’ll wish you’d never challenged me- or made it up here in the first place!”  _

_ Instead of responding, Shikamaru just let his gaze fall down from the sky and gave a silent command to the shadow binding their wrists together, causing it to flare up like black flames and cover his whole body, hiding the shabby cut-off jeans and ratty t-shirt he had purposefully donned earlier. The last thing he saw before the wave of shadow washed over his face, blocking out the sight of the world around him, was the sudden terror growing on the woman’s face as she redoubled her efforts to pull free, but in vain.  _

_ As the shadows swirled around Shikamaru, he felt himself growing taller, aging about five years. The face he planned on showing the woman was not the face he had worn when he had died, but it wasn’t from too far off, after joining the army but before the lines of worry and stress had been permanently etched into his once-soft face. The shadows gave one final swirl around him before they dissipated like a dark mist, taking with them the shackle that he had used to bind the woman’s wrist with his own, but not before causing the tattered army jacket he now wore to flare out behind him as if in the passing of a dramatic wind.  _

_ “Allow me to restate myself in a manner more befitting to the situation, ma’am,” he said cordially but coldly, all trace of the politely goofy personality he had worn before gone. “My name is Shikamaru Nara. I came from far away, and I’ll be staying in your city for a while. I do not wish to fight you for dominance, nor do I seek to stay for any great length of time. My visit to your territory is only temporary, but as it may be a longer temporary than I first anticipated, I thought I would at least announce my presence and intention so as to avoid any… misunderstandings. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”  _

_ “Crystal.” The woman’s pale eyes had hardened to diamond-like clarity. “You do not wish to be bothered, nor do you wish to upset the system already in place. I respect your intentions and power, self-proclaimed phantom. However, even the presence of an aura such as yours could cause disruptions to my peaceful society, especially since you have the look about you of one who has lived as a ghost long enough to have little concept of the passing of time in a human frame. Therefore, I must ask you: how long is this ‘temporary’ you speak of? Long enough to watch the rains fall tonight… or long enough to count the passing seasons?”  _

_ “Ha… I wonder…” Shikamaru once again allowed his gaze to drift towards the sky, taking in the clouds, full to bursting with unwept tears. It had stopped raining a little over an hour ago, but it looked like it might start up again soon. “I am sorry, but I have no concrete answer to your question. If I must say something… I believe I will be here until he sends me away.”  _

_ “‘He?’” The woman asked sharply, her tone forcing Shikamaru’s gaze down from the sky again. “Are you referring to your so-called Hyuuga friend?”  _

_ Shikamaru allowed the tiniest of indulgent smiles to slip through his mask for a fraction of a second, but from the shock on the woman’s face, he knew that she had seen it. “There’s nothing so-called about it, ma’am. He is a Hyuuga, and he is also my friend. In all the strange friendships I’ve seen across my lifetime, it’s not one of the strangest.”  _

_ “From your point of view. From where I stand, it’s unthinkable.”  _

_ His eyelashes fluttering downwards in a single, solid blink was the only sign Shikamaru allowed himself to give of his surprise. “And why is that?”  _

_ The woman angrily drew herself back and floated upwards several feet, forcing Shikamaru to crane his neck back to see her face and her cold expression. “Because the clan of Hyuuga is like its own country with its own rules that apply to no one but them, and they punish rule-breakers with more ferocity and vindication then I’ve ever seen given to those who commit treason against their mother nation.”  _

_ The information was shocking, but Shikamaru had suspected something similar, so he hid his emotions well. “And I’m guessing befriending a ghost is against one of those rules you mentioned that apply only to them?” _

_ “Precisely.” The woman extended a finger down to point at him warningly. “I don’t know if you’re lying or not about knowing a live Hyuuga, but if you are telling the truth, I would advise both you and him to be careful. If the Elders find out about it, they’ll punish him severely- and one of the most severe punishments will be to watch as they end you.”  _

Interesting… _ Shikamaru mentally filed away the information in a mental drawer. “The Elders?” He probed carefully, hoping to get a little more information out of her.  _

_ Unfortunately, she shook her head, obviously unwilling to divulge any more information. “They’re none of your business, shadow-brat. Keep away from them if you want to keep on existing as you are now, and I’d advise you to tell that stupid kid the same- or, better yet, stay away from him if you don’t want either of you to get hurt. The Hyuuga family has a habit of taking people and molding them into unfeeling lumps of clay who do as they’re told, as long as they’re told it will benefit the family.”  _

_ “So I’ve gathered…” Shikamaru muttered under his breath, but the woman caught the words.  _

_ “You think this is a joke?” She asked him angrily, swooping towards him to stab a finger in the center of his chest. “You think you can just waltz in a mess with a centuries-old bloodline with centuries-old traditions upheld by centuries-old members? Because, if you do, you’ve got another thing coming. Even I couldn’t escape their boney old clutches, not when I was alive. The only thing I was ever able to do to defy them was become a ghost when I died and stay up here, looking out for the ghosts across the city that mean no harm to anyone or anything. But even now, I’m powerless to go against them. If they ever found me here, they’d destroy me before I’d even have the chance to ask why.”  _

_ Quietly, Shikamaru asked, “Is that why you jumped, then? Because you thought there was no way to escape, except in death?”  _

_ “Jumped…?” The ridge between the woman’s eyebrows furrowed for a second before smoothing out again. “Ah, I see… Well, since you’ve broken my boredom of eternity hiding away atop a tourist trap for at least one afternoon, I don’t see why I shouldn’t let you in on a little secret…”  _

_ Suddenly, the woman’s accusing finger stabbing into Shikamaru’s chest turned into a fist grasping hold of his collar and pulling him forward, dragging his face towards hers so that she could put her lips directly against his ear and whisper a bone-chilling truth that, for the first time since he’d confronted her, shocked him to the core. As he stood in mid air, frozen from the chilling words that she had whispered to him, the woman drew back and gave him a true smile, though a sad one.  _

_ “Goodbye, shadow-brat. Don’t meddle in the affairs of the Hyuugas, for your sake, or the sake of your friend. But if you do see him again, don’t tell him you met me, okay? I can’t have rumor of my existence getting around to the Elders.”  _

  
  


“That’s not an answer, Shikamaru,” Neji said testily, bringing Shikamaru’s attention back to the present. “It’s either yes or no, not just ‘something like that!’ What’s with you today?” 

“What’s with you today?” Shikamaru retorted, sending a bishop diagonally forward with a flick of his finger. “You’re not usually so… let’s say…  _ waspish. _ Something happen today to ruffle your feathers the wrong way?” 

Like Shikamaru expected he would, Neji turned a light shade of pink and quickly refocused his gaze on the chessboard. “N-no, nothing happened.” 

_ Liar. _ But Shikamaru didn’t push the matter; he had already guessed the gist of the inciting incident - whatever it was - from the timing and depth of Neji’s blush. Instead, he simply pushed another piece forward and answered one of Neji’s earlier questions. “I figured that if I was going to be staying around here awhile, I might want to introduce myself to some of the local ghosts- just so they don’t suddenly take a disliking to me for walking in on their territory, you know. Just a good, old-fashioned friendly meet-and-greet.” 

“And the blast of power; was that part of your ‘friendly meet-and-greet’ as well?” 

The smallest hint of a smirk curled up the corner of Shikamaru’s lip. “A little intimidation never hurt anyone, Neji, especially if you want to get something done.” 

“Hmph.” Neji gave a delicate sniff and pushed a rook forward, capturing the bishop Shikamaru had just moved. “As if you need any more intimidation than your shadows.” 

The smirk disappeared from Shikamaru’s face. “...I don’t like to use them more often than I have to. They drain energy fast, and I prefer to keep them as an ace I never have to use.” 

“You use them all the time when you’re with me,” Neji countered softly, looking purposefully at the arm Shikamaru had extended to make his next move. Following Neji’s gaze, Shikamaru found a shadow wrapped around his forearm like an obedient snake, writhing gently against his skin. 

He hadn’t even noticed it was there. A tiny crease between his eyebrows the only outward indication of his inner frown, Shikamaru tried to dismiss the shadow from his body. It writhed as if in agony at the order for a few seconds before it dissipated into an insubstantial black mist that was reabsorbed into his body. 

This… could turn problematic. The reason that Shikamaru had hidden this power from his friends - and refused to use it for decades - was that the more he used it, the more he would unconsciously rely on it, and the more he relied on it, the stronger it would become. When he was alive, he and his shadows had lived in a delicate balance of power that could tip to one side or the other without notice, but he’d changed that by locking them up shortly after he’d died. Now, though, that he’d showed Neji and everyone else his powers, there was no longer a reason to hide them, so he’d started to call the shadows out regularly again. How often had he purposefully used them in the past week? He suddenly wondered, feeling the beginnings of nervousness start to creep into his mind. And how many times had he been surrounded by shadows that he hadn’t called out? 

Firmly, Shikamaru gave his head a slight shake and put the thought into another drawer in his mind marked “Sort Out Later”. He had dealt with his shadows before, and would again. They were as much a part of him as his right arm, and he could control them. Would control them. Without a doubt. 

Flashing a reassuring smile at Neji, Shikamaru said, “Perhaps they just like you. They wouldn’t easily forget the person they were first called upon to protect after decades of being locked up, after all.” 

“You speak about them as if they have personalities,” Neji pointed out, one eyebrow raised. “And besides, you bound Naruto that time, not me.” 

“I said protect, not strangle.” Shikamaru allowed the barest hint of an amused glimmer to show in his eyes. “And you’d be surprised by how much they actually decide on their own.” 

Neji gave a short laugh at that, his eyes lighting up momentarily, but his mirth was soon overtaken by worry again. “Just… be careful, okay, Shikamaru? Don’t pull any stunts like the one you did today again. You’re lucky I was the only one who felt your aura, or you’d be hunted out as soon as tomorrow morning. Seattle’s a different place than Konoha… the Hyuuga family keeps a tight reign on it.” 

“What kind of tight reign?” Shikamaru asked carefully, his mind still full of the things the Hyuuga ghost had told him this afternoon. It was obvious that they held a substantial amount of power around the city, particularly the ‘Elders’ she’d spoken of, but what kind of power exactly? 

Neji bit his bottom lip as if debating with himself how much he was going to tell Shikamaru, then released it with a sigh. “This is all confidential, and I can’t tell you much… but the Hyuuga way is to try to stop problems before they become problems. Part of that is forcing powerful ghosts to fade, whether they’re ready or not. Oftentimes, if a ghost with the potential to become a problem is discovered, they’re given less than a week to fade before the SWAT team is called in.” 

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow to cover up how much the information actually disturbed him. “SWAT team?” 

“The Uchihas,” Neji clarified, his intertwined hands in his lap tightening just slightly. “Sasuke doesn’t really know because he’s still too young, but the Hyuuga and Uchiha families work together to balance the power of the spectral plane with the mortal one over the entire country. The Hyuugas are the watchdogs… and the Uchihas are the exterminators. Every day across the country, branches of the two families hunt down high-level ghosts - ghosts like the Akatsuki, Naruto, and you, Shikamaru - and either force them to fade or end their existence another way. It’s not pretty, but it’s pragmatic and sometimes, it’s the only way to protect ourselves and everyone around us.” 

“And is that what you believe, or what you’ve been told to believe?” 

Neji’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a dangerous question we don’t ever ask. Not if we don’t want to lose something important to us. In my case, that would be Hinata. So please don’t ask, Shikamaru. Not that question.” 

Bowing his head slightly in agreement, Shikamaru said, “Note taken. No more questions.” Then his mouth twisted slightly as an ugly feeling of jealousy welled up inside him, and he moved a pawn forward with unprecedented venom. “Hinata, huh?” 

“Hinata is my cousin and my responsibility,” Neji said in a warning tone even icier than the one he had used before. “I’m protecting her so she won’t have to suffer some of the things I had to, or barring that, at least won’t have to suffer them alone. It’s a protective instinct, Shikamaru- something I doubt you’ve ever had the occasion to feel.” 

“A protective instinct… no, I haven’t felt one of those in a while.” Shikamaru pushed another pawn forward but didn’t let go of the piece, unconsciously rethinking his strategy. “I guess death takes that out of you. I mean, once you’re dead, it’s not like you have any friends to care about.” 

“That’s not what I meant, Shikamaru-” 

“I know,” Shikamaru answered softly, releasing the pawn’s head. “Check.” 

Neji’s eyebrows crept upwards. “Even when I’ve upset you, I still can’t beat you on purpose.” Then he looked down at the board, and frowned. “Um, where? That pawn isn’t anywhere near my king.” 

“Apparently you’re upset, too,” Shikamaru teased pointedly, leaning back with a superior expression. “The man I first played against would never have missed something this easy.” 

“Yeah, rub it in,” Neji snapped, his eyes quickly racking the chessboard to find the check. 

Taking pity on him, Shikamaru leaned forward again. “The queen, Neji. The pawn was blocking her path, but now she’s got a straight shot to the king.” 

“Damn!” Neji cursed when he saw it, quickly moving his king backwards to hide behind the protection of a knight. 

Unperturbed, Shikamaru shifted a bishop forward and took the knight, not quite forcing the king into another check but still making Neji sweat a little. “What’s wrong, Neji?” He asked teasingly, trailing his finger away from the bishop’s head in a smooth, sensual movement. “You’re playing worse than usual today.” 

Again, that infernal blush rose up over Neji’s cheeks, and he looked pointedly down at the chessboard. “N-nothing happened last night. So get your stupid head out of the gutter.” 

A grin slipped slyly over Shikamaru’s face at the confession Neji likely didn’t know he’d made yet. “Last night? I don’t remember saying anything about last night… or gutters, although they are strangely clean over here.” 

Neji’s jaw dropped and his mouth opened and shut a few times without making a sound, letting Shikamaru know that Neji had realized the magnitude of his admission, and that he was absolutely right in his deductions. Ah, he loved it when he was right. Allowing his grin to escalate into a knowing smirk, Shikamaru leaned further over the game board so his face was only a few inches away from Neji’s. 

“So, last night, huh? After I left? What happened then, Neji?” 

“N-nothing!” Neji stammered again, but more emphatically. “I called Sasuke and then went to bed! Nothing else happened!” 

“Oh, but that’s not exactly right…” Shikamaru murmured gently, as one would do to a small animal they were afraid of frightening away. “You realized something last night, didn’t you? Something that scared you, but also… made you excited, dare I even say…  _ aroused _ you?”

He wasn’t bluffing; he had seen it in Neji’s eyes, the moment when he had realized that they weren’t playing a game anymore, that Shikamaru had stepped away from his crutch of games and begun to play for keeps. The question that remained, however, was if Neji would be willing to do the same. His lips parting slightly, Shikamaru raised himself up onto his knees and leaned completely over the chessboard, resting his hands against the floor. Neji leaned away from his oncoming form, but didn’t scuttle away like he had last night. That, at least, was promising. 

“Well, Neji?” He almost purred, his eyes dropping down to a seductive half mast. “Your move…” 

In more ways than one. 

Neji locked gazes with Shikamaru for a few seconds, then something in his pale eyes hardened as he made a decision. He reached for the board underneath Shikamaru and moved a piece, then, instead of withdrawing his hand, he trailed it up Shikamaru’s arm to his neck, which he grabbed in a vice grip as he leaned forward and kissed him. It was chaste but forceful, like Neji was daring him right back, and when he pulled away, there was a new fire in his gaze. 

“Your move,” he taunted back, slightly out of breath. 

Without a word, Shikamaru pulled back and swept the unfinished game of chess to the side with enough force to topple most of the pieces over and displace them from their squares. Shocked, Neji stuttered, “But- But- we weren’t finished with the game! You always finish the game-” 

“I think we both know we’re done with games now, Neji,” Shikamaru whispered heatedly, feeling another shadow crawl down his arm but not caring enough to dismiss it. “Besides, I would have won within five moves anyway.” 

“C-cocky bastard,” Neji managed to say, but it was the only thing he could get out before Shikamaru wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him closer, crushing their mouths together. 

This time, Shikamaru didn’t bother with chasteness and pried Neji’s mouth open with his tongue as soon as their lips touched, swiftly darting forward to taste the inside of his mouth. He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved when Neji reached up and pulled him closer instead of pushing him away, allowing him complete control over the kiss. A little frustrated, Shikamaru growled into Neji’s mouth and their teeth banged together as Neji responded, throwing himself upwards with unprecedented zeal and thrusting his own tongue into Shikamaru’s mouth in response, exploring him just as thoroughly as he’d been explored. Shikamaru allowed him for several moments, firmly reminding himself of the promise he’d made to himself that he would not make Neji fight against him for his own enjoyment, before pulling back again. Their tongues were the last thing that lost contact, and when Shikamaru looked down, he saw that Neji was panting and his cheeks were bright red. 

“Your… your move now,” he parroted back at Neji, surprised at how out of breath he was as well. 

Instead of answering him with another kiss, as Shikamaru had expected him too, Neji reached behind himself and pulled his hair from the loose ponytail he always wore bundled near the ends of his hair, sifting his finger through the strands to make them settle softly about his shoulders like a dark halo. After his hair had finished settling around his shoulder, he trailed that same hand down his chest and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his pajamas, pushing the fabric aside to reveal the ridge of his collarbone standing out starkly against his neck. 

“...I had a dream last night,” Neji admitted, lowering his eyelashes so his gaze didn’t meet Shikamaru’s. “That you came back, and stayed the night…” 

“And then what happened?” Shikamaru asked breathlessly, his eyes glued to Neji’s nervous but aroused face. 

“Well, after the whole whale incident…” 

“...I’m not sure I even want to know what that means…” 

“You.. um… kinda… well, you did… and then we… uh… damn it, I can’t think of a good enough euphemism!” 

Shikamaru couldn’t help but chuckle at the cute mixture of anger and blatant need on Neji’s face. “It’s okay, Neji; I think I get where you’re going. So, is it my turn now?” 

Neji nodded quickly, clearly happy to be taken out of the limelight. His relieved expression melted away, however, when Shikamaru picked him up and started walking towards the bed. 

“What are you doing?!” 

“Relax; we’re not going far,” Shikamaru whispered into Neji’s ear, stopping his squirming until he dropped him on the bed. 

The mattress was springy, causing Neji to bounce slightly when Shikamaru released him, the shock on his face evident as Shikamaru sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. 

“My question still stands, Shikamaru!” He said emphatically, his eyes wide. “What are you doing?” 

“Well, you didn’t think you could tell me something like  _ that _ and I wasn’t going to ravish you, did you? Because that is certainly not happening.” Shikamaru heard the sharp intake of breath from Neji, and allowed a devious smile to spread across his face. “You’re lucky you still have your clothes on, after you started stripping in front of me earlier.” 

“I wasn’t stripping-” Neji tried to say, sitting up to get better leverage, but Shikamaru leaned forward and grabbed a handful of his hair, pulling him in close and effectively ending his brief protest. 

“It’s my turn right now,” Shikamaru reminded him, and Neji nodded eagerly with wide eyes before Shikamaru reeled him in by his hair and kissed him again. 

The pajama shirt really was useless, Shikamaru decided when the enlarged neck hole slipped off Neji’s shoulder, especially now that the nights were warm, so he trailed his hand down Neji’s chest, unbuttoning the buttons as he went with telekinesis. When he reached the last button, he moved to take the shirt off of Neji, but stopped short when Neji grabbed his hand and instead brought it lower, to brush against the front of his pajama bottoms. 

Correction: the bulge in front of his pajama bottoms. 

Neji’s whole body trembled at Shikamaru’s touch, thrumming with repressed energy. He was already more than half hard, Shikamaru realized, and getting more so by the second. He flicked a glance up to Neji’s face only to find that he wasn’t even looking at him; his head was tilted back, his upper body held barely six inches off the mattress by his elbows propped underneath him, and his hair was flowing down to touch the comforter atop the bed like a sensual waterfall. Unable to stop himself, Shikamaru gave Neji a light squeeze, fascinated by the way his body responded, arching delicately off the mattress and pressing into his hand. 

If Shikamaru was honest with himself, this whole situation was… kind of perfect. Almost too perfect. When he’d set out to make Neji his opponent almost three weeks ago, he’d been prompted by boredom and a desire to learn more about him, but that had slowly morphed into genuine attachment, and then non-so-slowly into lust. He’d figured that Neji was too straight-laced to ever let him do anything like this to him, especially considering his reaction the first time he’d kissed him, but here they were. Shikamaru was no stranger to this kind of thing - when he had been deployed overseas for months at a time, sometimes hormones got the better of you, and he’d done things he certainly hadn’t been proud of at the time - but he was sure that Neji had never allowed anyone else to touch him like this before. Why Shikamaru, then, and why now? Was it availability, or actual emotion? 

“Nh… Shika… maru…” 

Well, whatever the answer to that question may be, Shikamaru decided he didn’t need it right then and there. Neji let his head drop forward, his hair sliding around his face like a curtain and cutting it off from the outside world. Tenderly, Shikamaru reached up with his unoccupied hand and took hold of the back of Neji’s neck, guiding him down for a gentler kiss as his other hand crept below the waistline of his pajama pants. 

“Mn!” 

Neji started and made a soft cry at the sudden contact, but Shikamaru swallowed the sounds into his own mouth as he slowly pulled Neji’s waistband down to expose his throbbing erection to the night air. 

Breaking away from Neji’s mouth, Shikamaru whispered, “Someone’s eager…” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Neji muttered back, glaring at him. “Keep it up and you’ll- ahh!” 

His voice quickly turned from words into incomprehensible noises as Shikamaru gave an experimental rub down his length, his whole body starting to shake again. Grinning like a cat who had gotten lucky with a bird falling asleep directly in front of his nose, Shikamaru gave a slightly harder rub and asked, “I’ll what, Neji?” 

“Fuck… you… Shika… maru…” Neji gasped out, throwing his head back a second time and giving Shikamaru an exquisite view of a pale, supple neck that drew his eyes upwards. 

“What, is that in the cards?” He teased gently as he leaned upwards, his lips barely brushing against the skin of Neji’s neck. At the same time, he kept his hand making slow and steady motions up and down Neji’s length, robbing him of the ability to answer as he closed the remaining distance between his lips and Neji’s neck, pressing a light kiss against his skin. 

Neji immediately tilted his head to the side to allow Shikamaru better access to his neck, sending a jolt of surprised pleasure down his spine. Well, with an invitation like that, how could he refuse? Shikamaru pulled his lips back to press his teeth against the soft skin of Neji’s neck, then bit down gently, sucking at the skin trapped between his teeth. Neji’s body jerked beneath him, though he couldn’t tell if it was because of the bite or the friction of Shikamaru’s hand. 

When he had grown tired of kissing Neji’s neck, Shikamaru drew back, finding a small bite-shaped mark in the crook between his neck and shoulder, and was surprised at the sudden wave of possessiveness that swamped over him at the sight. That mark was his, on Neji, like a stamp of ownership, and it made him want to make more on every part of Neji’s body. 

But Shikamaru repressed the urge and instead dragged his lips down Neji’s chest, intent on a much greater prize. He stopped at a few places along the way, his teeth grazing Neji’s nipples and his tongue dancing down his abdomen, but mostly he kept his course true, leading down to the waistband of Neji’s pants and the pulsing erection waiting for him there. 

When he let go of Neji’s length, Shikamaru heard him give a small whimper of loss, but that was soon gone as he placed both hands on Neji’s hips, keeping him pressed firmly against the mattress, and brought his mouth down to touch the tip of his erection. It was a good thing Shikamaru was restraining his hips, because Neji jerked at the contact, thrusting upwards shallowly and bringing his gaze down to lock with Shikamaru’s. 

“Easy, tiger,” Shikamaru instructed with a smirk, pushing Neji’s hips back down onto the mattress. “Let me do it, ’kay?” 

Neji nodded emphatically, causing his hair to fall pash his shoulders in a rush. Keeping their eyes locked, Shikamaru lowered his mouth towards Neji’s length and slowly opened his lips, letting his tongue fall out and tease the tip. Neji jerked again, but not as badly, so Shikamaru continued his exploration, kissing his way down one side and back up the other before letting his tongue follow the same path. 

“Nn… mh… ah!” Neji cried out, shifting his body so he was balanced on one elbow and reaching forward with the other hand to grab the back of Shikamaru’s scalp. “Shikamaru… please…” 

_ Your wish is my command _ , Shikamaru wanted to quip back, but his mouth was otherwise occupied at the moment. Instead, he contented himself with humming gently, pressing his lips against the head of Neji’s length in preparation for swallowing it whole. When he hesitated just a fraction of a second too long for Neji’s tastes, Shikamaru felt the hand at the back of his head apply impatient pressure, so he chuckled in a low hum again, opening up his mouth and allowing the head of Neji’s erection to pass through his lips. He descended down about halfway before he stopped, having felt it hit the back of his tongue and not quite sure if he wanted to go further on the first go. Eventually deciding against it, Shikamaru pulled his head upwards again, trailing his tongue purposefully along after him. When he reached the top of his arc, he pushed downwards again, feeling Neji’s hot flesh slide more comfortably into his mouth this time. After the first few times, Shikamaru set up a comfortable rhythm, bobbing his head up and down Neji’s length and hearing him cry out every time he went a little deeper. 

Suddenly, Neji thrust shallowly upwards when Shikamaru was at the downward peak of his arc, driving himself almost to the back of his throat. For a few moments, Shikamaru almost choked, then he found his rhythm again, even with Neji’s shallow thrusts. The hand at the back of his head fisted his hair without any regard for gentleness, pulling back harshly and shoving him downwards at the same time. 

Eventually, the shallow thrusts Neji was making grew more and more irregular and his incomprehensible vocalizations escalated, letting Shikamaru know that he was likely getting close to his peak. Pulling his mouth off of his length, Shikamaru looked up just in time to catch Neji’s expression as he came, his head thrown back and his jaw hanging loosely slack and his entire body spasmed and a stream of semen shot upwards to splatter against his own bare stomach and Shikamaru’s face. 

For a minute, maybe more, they stayed frozen, the only sound the harshness of Neji’s panting. Eventually, though, he rolled his head forward, and Shikamaru found himself enraptured by the fervent blush staining his cheeks and his glazed, euphoric eyes. His chest heaved up and down with the force of his gasps, but they were becoming less ragged with every breath he took until he had regained enough energy to speak. 

“I… I got your face,” Neji panted somewhat apologetically, reaching down to cup Shikamaru’s cheek. “Sor… sorry… ’bout that…” 

Still coming down from the rush watching Neji come had given him, Shikamaru touched his cheek almost absentmindedly, surprised when his fingers came away wet. “Oh… I hadn’t even noticed. Don’t worry about it.” 

“But still…” Neji reached for something in the drawer of his bedside table, returning with a tissue that he used to wipe the evidence of his own orgasm from Shikamaru’s face. “There. That’s better.” 

“Hmmm… If you say so…” Shikamaru stole the tissue from Neji and used it to wipe away the residue from their exploits from his stomach. “Personally, I think I’d look hotter with it on my face, but to each his own, I suppose.” 

Neji looked surprised enough to choke at the quip at first, then he dissolved into laughter behind a raised hand. “You’re something else, Shikamaru.” 

“I do try.” Shikamaru leaned up and kissed Neji again, a kiss which was gladly reciprocated. He allowed himself to be swept along with Neji’s flow until several seconds later, he found himself flat on his back on the mattress and Neji’s hand at the waistband of his pants. 

“Neji, what are you doing?” He asked suddenly, breaking away from Neji’s hold. 

“Reciprocating,” Neji answered with a confused tilt to his head as if he didn’t quite understand why Shikamaru was stopping him. “You did me, now I do you. It’s only fair.” 

“Hold on, Neji!” Shikamaru pushed himself upright, forcing a confused Neji backwards. “It’s… it’s okay. You don’t have to.” 

“Don’t have to?” Neji’s eyebrows drew together almost angrily. “But why-”

“Shhh…” Shikamaru sealed off the words coming from Neji’s mouth with a kiss, and when he pulled away, his eyes had started to glaze over again. “That’s enough for now, Neji.” 

“But-” Neji tried to protest again, but Shikamaru gently laid a finger against his lips. 

“I said I was fine, Neji. You don’t need to do that. So just let it go. Okay?” 

His eyebrows racing up his forehead in surprise, Neji exclaimed, “Not until you give me a reason!” 

“Well, I… uh…” For the first time that night, Shikamaru stuttered over his words, embarrassment coloring his cheeks a slightly darker shade. “I’m… um… I’m a ghost, you know… and sometimes we don’t have the same kind of physical reactions as people who are still alive, so…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his head to avoid having to look Neji in the eye. 

Understanding dawned on Neji’s face, followed immediately by a quick flash of something that looked suspiciously like disappointment. “I get it. Sorry, Shikamaru. I didn’t mean to overstep my boundaries.” 

_ Boundaries that wouldn’t exist if I had my way _ , Shikamaru thought, some of his frustration bleeding through into his normal tone as he spoke. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry, too.”  _ Someday, we can do that and more. Just not today.  _

“Are you cold?” He asked abruptly, changing the subject so quickly that Neji blinked. 

“No, I’m fine…” 

“Good; then you can get rid of this thing.” Shikamaru yanked the undone pajama top from Neji’s shoulders and threw it aside, where it landed somewhere around when the chessboard was. “I can’t stand it.” 

“Do you not like my taste in pajamas?” Neji asked tersely, folding his arms over his chest in mock anger. 

“Forget taste, I don’t like the fact that you wear pajamas. Real men sleep naked, Neji.” A sudden thought occurred to Shikamaru. “Why do you wear so much clothes, anyway? And not just the pajamas; when you were in Konoha, you seemed almost allergic to wearing anything other than a three piece suit. Do you just not like people looking at your skin, or what?” 

Turning his head to the side, Neji avoided Shikamaru’s gaze, letting him know that he’d grazed a nerve. “The Hyuuga family is very… old fashioned. They don’t believe in people showing more skin than they absolutely have to… which stems from the custom of generally forbidding… um…  premarital sexual relations…” 

_ Premarital sexual relations… _ Well, at least that solved the mystery of why Neji wore so much clothes, and the mystery of why he had no concept of his own sexual identity. It had probably been drummed into his head to avoid those kinds of thoughts since a young age. Not wanting to press Neji any further, Shikamaru draped his arm around his shoulders and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. 

“Are you tired?” 

“A little,” Neji admitted, curling into Shikamaru’s embrace. “And Hinata is coming over again tomorrow morning so I have to wake up early…” 

Shikamaru tried not to stiffen at the mention of Neji’s younger cousin and began to pull away regretfully. “I suppose I should let you sleep, then.” 

He had almost disentangled himself when Neji grabbed his collar, keeping him from moving away. His mouth opened and shut a few times without releasing any sound before he muttered, “Stay with me?” 

Shikamaru gazed down Neji’s red-cheeked face, embarrassed to asking for something like that, and he couldn’t say no. “Okay. I’ll stay.” 

When Neji looked up into his eyes, barely concealed hope shining from his face, Shikamaru felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” With a flick of his wrist, Shikamaru turned off the lights and drew the comforter on the bed over Neji, settling down next to him on top of the covers. “I’ll stay, so go to sleep soon, okay? I don’t want to be the one to get in trouble because you can’t wake up in time for your meeting tomorrow.” 

“I already… did that today…” Neji said with a yawn, his eyes drifting closed. “Night, Shikamaru…” 

As he watched Neji’s eyelashes flutter closed and his breathing settle itself into a regular pattern, Shikamaru couldn’t resist kissing him on the forehead one last time. “Goodnight, Neji.”

 

⚞⚟

 

The light from the moon, almost as pale as the eyes of a Hyuuga, filtered down through a rare gap in the clouds, illuminating the soft strands of hair that fanned out over Neji’s pillow like fronds of sea-grasses swaying in a gently rippling tide. The body lying between him and the window did nothing to block the pale light, even when he propped himself up on his elbows, as the light shone directly through his transparent skin and onto the solid, live body beneath him. The only exception to this would, of course, be if Shikamaru chose to call up a physical shadow and have it block the silver fingers of the moon from ruffling his fairy boy’s hair, but, then again, Shikamaru wasn’t quite jealous enough of the moon to block its touch from Neji’s hair. 

Yet. He was getting there, though. 

As he lay there watching Neji sleep, his face relaxed in slumber and exuding more youth and purity than he’d seen since he’d watched him sleep in the forest clearing almost three weeks ago, Shikamaru couldn’t help but remember the words the ghost Hyuuga had whispered to him that afternoon before giving him a final warning to stay clear of Hyuuga business, words that, even now, haunted him. 

_ I didn’t jump; I was pushed. And the only people standing next to me were related to me by blood.  _

Shikamaru didn’t know the crime she had committed in the eyes of the Hyuuga family, but he doubted it was something any sane person would have her killed over. And yet, it had happened, and if her words were to be trusted, Neji was also committing a grievous offense just by associating with him. The next question that begged to be asked, then, was what would happen to Neji if their relationship was brought to the attention of his family? Would he, like the woman, be killed in a way that could be framed as a suicide so not as to arouse suspicion? 

The very thought caused Shikamaru’s hand to clench and shake in rage, fisting the sheet Neji was lying under. A frown marring his sleeping visage, Neji shifted at the sensation, and Shikamaru quickly forced his hand to relax and let go of the sheet, watching as Neji settled back to his former position. 

If Neji became a ghost like Shikamaru, that would solve a lot of issues - particularly physical ones - in their current relationship. However, not everyone who died stuck around after their death, which was likely particularly true of the Hyuugas, as the Hyuuga ghost had made it sound like her existence was against some unwritten rule. In addition, not all ghosts were equal in their mental functions; even if Neji did decide to stick around after his death, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t become a vegetative spector. No, that option was just too chancy to consider. Besides, Shikamaru felt a sudden ache in his heart when he thought about Neji dying that overshadowed any other logic on the topic. 

This ache… and the sudden urge to wrap both his arms around Neji and pull him safely against his chest… Shikamaru frowned, the corners of his lips turning down in confusion. Was this… a protective instinct? From one who’d killed again and again under the duress of war, no less? The idea was almost laughable. And yet, the way the moon caressed her pale fingers through Neji’s hair did fill Shikamaru with the unreasonable desire to send a beam of power up into the night sky and smash it to pieces. This was a reasonable punishment for daring to put her hands on his fairy boy, he figured. 

“Shika… ma… ru…” 

The whisper fell so softly from Neji’s lips that for a second, Shikamaru wasn’t sure if he’d really heard it. Then it came again, accompanied with a light sigh and a secret smile meant for one person alone. 

“Shikamaru…” 

Shikamaru felt his heart clench at the sound. His fairy boy was dreaming about him? The knowledge filled him with a burst of joy that he underestimated the strength of until he found himself unconsciously reaching for Neji’s face and froze, his fingertips a hand’s breadth away from his sleeping face. What was he doing in that dream with Neji, that he would call out his name in such a breathless voice? 

“...Don’t hurt the whale; they’re on the endangered species list… Mmn, the shark is fine though; he ate my cat when I was trying to give him a bath… Do you know where the toilet paper is? Hinata needs it for an art project at school and all I can find is this box of scented tissues, and you know they only make glasses more smudged when you try to wipe them off because of the lotion…” 

Well, Shikamaru supposed, the human subconscious was an altogether terrifying expanse where no man should tread lightly. Still, he found the nonsense Neji was murmuring to be endearing, so he curled himself closer and settled down to listen until the syllables ran together into an unintelligible string of sounds that eventually faded into nothing as Neji hit a deeper level of sleep. 

Maybe this whole “protective instinct” wasn’t as bad as Shikamaru had first thought. Perhaps - just perhaps - he’d try it out for a little while. 

 


	4. Isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone starts to feel a little bit more alone.

⚞⚟

 

Sasuke lay in his bed facing the wall, his phone clutched loosely in his hand. Ever since the text had come in from Neji the day before, he’d been marshalling his thoughts as best he could, but they’d been fracturing into sharp, hurtful shards before he could get them lined up in some semblance of order. He’d spent so many years of his life hating Itachi that the emotional catharsis of allowing himself to love him again had almost undone him, and then Itachi’s disappearance again, directly afterword… even though he’d told Neji he was fine, he was still suffering. 

The phone in Sasuke’s loose grip buzzed, but he ignored it. It had been doing that all day, and he had yet to even look at the caller ID. Not that it mattered much, anyway; if it was important, whoever it was would leave him a message. 

Or seventeen, he discovered as he finally glanced down at his phone to discover the huge stack of notifications. Groaning, he almost threw the phone down again - he’d almost developed an aversion to the thing after the summer spent trying to stay out of touch with his parent - but at the last second he unlocked it instead. He could only sit there with thoughts of Itachi going round and round in his head like a carousel stuck on the fastest setting for so long before he really drove himself mad. 

With a sigh, Sasuke rolled onto his back and held the phone aloft, looking at the notifications for the voicemails he had gotten over the course of the day. To his surprise, he saw that they were all from Sakura. He tapped on the oldest message and held his phone up to his ear to hear her voice come out of the tiny speaker. 

_ “Hey, Sasuke; it’s me! How are you doing? I just wanted to catch up with you, but you haven’t been replying to my texts so I thought I’d call. Is this a bad time? Right, I forgot you were in a different time zone… but Chicago's only an hour away, isn’t it? Oh, well, I’ll try again later. Bye!”  _

Sasuke had a smile on his face when he lowered the phone, the first he’d worn since the incident a day and a half ago. He hadn’t thought too much about it at the time, being preoccupied with other things like Naruto and the Akatsuki, but Sakura had been a good friend to him over the summer. She’d forced him into uncomfortable situations and generally made a fool out of him, but she’d also dragged him out of his shell, talking books with him and making him feel welcomed, and hearing her voice again had reminded him of all that. 

Scrolling quickly up the list of voicemails, Sasuke found one from several hours later and selected it. 

“ _ Hey, Sasuke, it’s me again.” _ This time, her voice was a little strained. _ “So… I see you’re still not picking up. You okay? You’re not hurt, are you? Anyway, I… uh… I didn’t want to bug you, but I’ve obviously already done that considering how many messages I’ve left you… So… um… just give me a call back when you can! Kay, bye!”  _

This time, Sasuke frowned. Why did she sound so harried? Was she just worried for him, or did something else happen? Just to make sure, he scrolled up to the most recent voicemail and selected it. 

_ “Hey, Sasuke… it’s… it’s me again.”  _ Sakura’s voice sounded tired and drained, as if she had just come out of some major altercation.  _ “Sorry to keep calling you like this, but I really need to talk to you about something important… My parents keep asking me about something and I just need to talk to you about it… Sorry again for bugging you. I’ll call again in a half hour or so. Bye.” _

Sasuke lowered the phone from his ear when the message ended. What had caused Sakura to sound so despondent? Now he felt like an ass for not picking up on one of her seventeen earlier calls. Sitting up swiftly, he hit the call back button and held his phone up to his ear. 

Sakura picked up on the first ring, her voice breathless in Sasuke’s ear. “Hello? Sasuke?” 

“Sakura?” Sasuke sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Yeah, it’s me. What’s up? Sorry I wasn’t answering your calls earlier-” 

“Oh my gosh, Sasuke, are you okay?” Sakura yelled into into ear all in a rush, forcing him to yank the phone away from his face or brave a potential ruptured eardrum. “No broken bones? All your family’s still alive? No tragic death of a family pet? House fire? Brain damage?!?! Quick, what’s twelve times five-” 

“Sakura!” Sasuke finally managed to cut her off, bringing his phone back to his ear once her screeching voice had ceased to issue from his speakers. “It’s sixty, and I’m completely fine. Nothing happened to me. I just… had a rough patch, but I’m okay now.” 

“Rough patch?” Sakura’s voice lost some of its franticness, but she still sounded worried. “Sasuke, are you sure you’re okay? Did something happen?” 

Sighing, Sasuke passed a hand over his eyes as if that would force the rest of the world away and into a corner where he wouldn’t have to see it. “...Yes, but not to me and I don’t really want to talk about it right now. Sorry, Sakura. I just… can’t.” 

“That’s okay; I understand,” Sakura said kindly, but he heard the unasked questions in her voice that he knew would later have to be answered. 

Quickly changing the subject, Sasuke asked, “What about you? I didn’t listen to all of your messages, but I listened to a few and you sounded like you were having a rough time. What did you want to talk to me about?” 

“Oh…” A world of dejected disappointment rang in that single syllable before Sakura’s voice brightened again. “Sorry about that! I didn’t mean to sound so caught up in myself. I just wanted to tell you that… tell you… I… I…” 

“Sakura?!” Sasuke exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in his bed at the sound of her normally chipper tone bleeding through with hopelessness before trailing off into what sounded suspiciously like a sob. “What’s wrong?” 

“Everything!” She finally broke down, sobbing into the phone like it was her only chance to cry herself out, which it might have been. “I can’t… I should have known… not to d-dream too high, hope too hard… I should known it was t-too good to be true-” 

“Hold on, Sakura!” Sasuke cut her off, trying to speak calmly and knowing that he was failing. “Just- slow down, and tell me exactly what happened, from the beginning!” 

“S-sorry, Sasuke” Sakura stuttered, taking several deep breaths to calm her jerky breathing. “I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to have to decline your offer of helping find scholarships because… because… I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to go to college next year…” 

She broke down again as Sasuke sat still in shock. Sakura had confessed to him that one of her oldest dreams had been to become a doctor, though her family didn’t have enough money to afford it so she’d given up on it long ago. When he’d left, he’d made her a promise that if she really wanted it, he could get information from his father on which organizations gave out the kind of scholarships she would need, and she’d been absolutely overjoyed, giving him a hug so hard, he was surprised that none of his ribs had been broken. Why this abrupt about-face, then? What had happened to make her change her mind this quickly? 

But when he thought about it, the answer was obvious enough. 

“You told your parents, didn’t you?” Sasuke asked, stifling the urge to groan. 

“Mm-hm,” Sakura sniffed, and the sound of a nose being blown echoed across the phone line. “We haven’t started school yet, but I thought that I should start talking to them early about going to some of the college fairs in the area… and they shot me down flat. Told me that it wasn’t any use trying to apply for colleges that probably wouldn’t accept me, and that there wasn’t any money available for me to go to college anyways. And then when I tried to bring up financial aid, they got even worse, saying that no daughter of theirs would take out a hundred thousand dollars worth of loans to get a useless degree - their words, not mine. So, I figured I should probably just… give up. I can go to a vocational school and get a technical license, or maybe a cheap community college with the money I’ve saved up working at the Hokage… So thank you for everything you’ve done for me so far, Sasuke, but I should probably stop here… before I get myself into something too big for me to handle.” 

“Hold it, Sakura-” 

“It’s okay, Sasuke,” Sakura interrupted, sounding like she was going to cry again. “I’ve accepted it. There’s some people who can pull themselves out of bad situations with hard work and talent and smartness, but I can’t. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m just not one of those people. I guess I’ll leave you alone now.” 

Sasuke’s mind raced as Sakura bid him farewell, the sound of her heartbroken voice getting more distant as she took the phone away from her face to end the call. His jaw tightened as a million thoughts flashed through his head. There were hundred, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people just like Sakura who had their dreams shattered every day because of stupid things like money or discouragement… why had he never thought of them before? They were human, just much as him- and more alive than the people he usually dealt with. Perhaps he didn’t have it in his power to help all those people who needed it, but today, he had the power to help one of them, so he was going to do it! 

Jumping off his bed, Sasuke landed upright and snapped, “Dammit, Sakura, don’t you dare hang up that phone!” 

“Huh?” Sakura gave a surprised squeak, but didn’t disconnect the call. “Sasuke, I-” 

“‘You’re not one of those people’?” He parroted back to her, something like anger flashing through his voice. “One of the people who works hard and is talented and smart? Don’t give me that crap, Sakura! You worked so hard at the Hokage!” 

“I average about forty-four,” Sakura admitted, the tiniest hind of a smile in her voice. “The overtime… the pay is nice.” 

“And anyone who reads like you do and can discuss the kinds of books we talked about over the summer is definitely smart!” Sasuke added, starting to pace back and forth in his room. “Do you know what your class rank is?” 

This time, Sakura took a little longer in answering, but her voice held a little more pride. “Fourth, but the third and I were really close at the end of last year.” 

“See? I told you you were smart! Do you know what your GPA is?” 

“Um… four point zero two, but I don’t see what that has to do with just being smart; anyone can pad their GPA-”

“Wait,” Sasuke interrupted, his mind starting to whirl. “Your GPA is higher than a four point oh? How did you do that?” 

“Because my high school weights GPA calculations if you take higher level classes… what does this have to do with what we were talking about, again?” 

“And you took those higher level classes?” Sasuke interrupted again, completely ignoring her question. 

“Oh course I did; Sasuke, what are you trying to prove-” 

“And extra-curriculars?” Sasuke asked excitedly, gripping his phone with both hands. “Were you in any clubs?” 

“Um… an art club and a book club, and I ran track for a year when I was a freshman, and I helped paint sets for when Choji and Ino were in plays… Again, Sasuke, what does this have to do what we were talking about? If you’re trying to make a point, it’s not coming through.” 

“Just bear with it just a little longer.” Sasuke’s strides got even longer as the speed of his pacing increased. “Did you have any leadership positions in the other clubs you were in?” 

“I was the vice president of the book club last year and this year I’ll be the president… Sasuke, what are you trying to prove?” 

“I’m proving you wrong,” Sasuke said, coming to a sudden stop in the middle of the room. “You say that only smart, talented and hard working people can overcome obstacles, and that you’re not one of them, but from the way you just described yourself, you are one of them, and you have as much right to pursue any dream you want to as any other person does! You may think that you don’t have a chance, but I’m telling you that you do! And so what if one option falls through, or two, or a dozen- there’s always more chances if you look for them, and you’ll only run out of options if you stop searching! So don’t stop now, Sakura, not when you haven’t even started! Give up if you want, but only after you’ve put up a fight!” 

Silence resounded from Sakura’s end of the connection, and for a moment Sasuke tensed, worried that he’d gone too far. Then he heard the sound of a small laugh fighting its way through tears, and he relaxed. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you this passionate about anything before,” she chuckled, her voice still thick from the tears she had shed but her laughter genuine. “What’s gotten into you?” 

Sasuke opened his mouth to answer the question, but he paused at the last second. This was out of character for him; even if he valued Sakura as a friend, there was no reason he should be this worried about her, or offer her this much help. It was probably because he was still shaken from his meeting with Itachi and his brother’s subsequent disappearance and needed something, anything to grasp onto and give his some kind of purpose, but he didn’t want to think of it in those terms because he felt like it weakened the action itself. He didn’t want this to be a measure of his weakness; he wanted it to be a measure of Sakura’s strength. 

“Because I think you deserve it,” he finally answered, feeling a pulse in his chest that told him he was speaking the truth. “Because you are smart, and talented, and hard-working, and all you need is for someone to recognize that and… you could be one of the best doctors in the country.” 

“Really?” Sakura asked breathlessly, and Sasuke could almost see the stars forming in her eyes at the thought. “Do you… do you really think I could?” 

“You have as much of a shot as anyone.” Sasuke leaned forward as his voice intensified, even though Sakura couldn’t see him. “But don’t give up now. Please, don’t give up now. Let me speak to my father about some of the people he knows who do scholarships for medical students, and promise me you’ll fill out the applications. If it doesn’t work out, you can give up if you want, but please promise me you’ll do at least that much.” 

It took a few seconds, but eventually Sasuke heard Sakura nod on the other end of the line. “Okay. Okay, I’ll do it. You’ve convinced me. Just… don’t expect too much, ‘kay? And don’t be too disappointed when it doesn’t work out.” 

“ _ If _ it doesn’t work out, Sakura,” Sasuke corrected, “Which would be unlikely. We’ll find you something, Sakura, because I won’t stop trying until we do.” 

“Thank you, Sasuke,” Sakura whispered into the phone, sounding like she might cry again. “I don’t know what to say except… thank you. This is the nicest thing someone’s ever done for me.”

“Well, don’t get too used to it,” Sasuke chuckled, glad that he had succeeded in persuading her not to give up. “I’m sure the next time you talk to me, I’ll be back to being the lovable asshole you got to know over the summer.” 

That drew a sarcastic snort from Sakura. “I’ll look forward to it. Talk to you later, Sasuke.” 

“Talk to you later,” Sasuke promised, listening to the quiet sound of Sakura’s final goodbye before she hung up with a click. 

Well. He’d gone and started something, so he better keep up with it. Straightening his shirt and running a hand through his hair to give the illusion that he hadn’t just rolled out of bed, Sasuke strode out of his bedroom to find his father and ask him a couple of questions. 

 

⚞⚟

 

The sound of an alarm woke Neji the next morning, blaring just out of his reach with an ear-splitting racket. Pulled abruptly from the depths of sleep and still bleary, he hurled a floundering arm out to silence it, but missed and failed to cut off the horrendous noise. A growl of frustration escaping him, Neji dragged his eyes open to better aim for the infernally elusive button just in time to watch an insubstantial arm reach over the top of him and casually turn off the alarm. 

“Good morning, Neji,” Shikamaru murmured in his ear, his voice husky as if from a sleep Neji knew he hadn’t had. “Sleep well?” 

“As well as I always do,” Neji replied, stretching both arms over his head and noticing as he did so the way Shikamaru’s arm was curled almost protectively around his waist, even though the covers Neji was sleeping under separated them by a few thin layers of fabric. “Shikamaru… did you stay like that the whole night?” 

“Hmm?” Shikamaru’s arm curled a little more securely around Neji’s waist, and he nuzzled a little closer to his ear. “... Pretty much.” 

A wave of guilt without an easily identifiable source swept through Neji. “God, Shikamaru, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you stay - I mean, I wanted you to stay, but you didn’t have to stay right next to me - you were probably bored the whole night-” 

“Shh…” Shikamaru cut Neji off with a finger against his lips. “Don’t worry about that; I had plenty of entertainment. I meditated a bit, had a heated discussion with the moon about her overly familiar habits concerning your hair, listened to your adorable sleep talk, and then almost made myself believe that I was really asleep next to you before that blasted alarm went off in my ear and shattered that illusion. You should really give it a talking to - it’s not nice to crush people’s daydreams like that.” 

“What are you talking about?” Neji asked confusedly, though he couldn’t bring himself to do it crossly. “A heated discussion with the moon; give my alarm clock a talking to? Are you sure you didn’t spend the night hallucinating?” 

“No more that you were,” Shikamaru retorted gently, reaching up to brush a few sleep tousled locks away from Neji’s cheek. “You were muttering a whole lot of nonsense about whales and sharks, then about needing to help your cousin make a paper mache model for school. That part made me laugh; I doubt someone as prissy as you has ever even touched the stuff before.” 

“And on that guess, you would be right.” Neji frowned in the middle of his sentence. “Do I really talk in my sleep?” 

“Loud as a bell, and crystal clear, too.” Shikamaru elevated his torso off the bed, looking down at Neji with a smirk. “Though not too coherent. As I mentioned before, there was a long spiel on sharks that I couldn’t make heads or tails of.” 

“That’s weird,” Neji said thoughtfully, his mind starting to wander. “No one’s ever told me that I talk in my sleep before…” 

“Well, have you ever actually slept with someone else before?” 

Neji was silent for a few moments as he considered this. “Point taken. I hope I didn’t say anything too embarrassing, then.” 

“Neji, you were embarrassed when you had grass stuck to your pants.” Shikamaru gave him a cheeky grin. “But it was just me, so you’ve got nothing to worry about, ’kay? I keep secrets well.” 

“So I’ve gathered,” Neji remarked dryly, then answered Shikamaru’s smile with one of his own, looping his hands around the phantom’s neck. “So, what did I say? Other than the sharks or the paper mache, that is. I have absolutely no idea where those came from.” 

“Hmmm… a lot of things actually, but it was mostly just nonsense.” Shikamaru tilted his head downwards until his forehead rested against Neji’s. “You did say my name a lot, though.” 

Neji’s gaze narrowed. “Did I? How many times is ‘a lot’?” 

“Twenty, thirty times maybe? I wasn’t keeping track.” Shikamaru’s eyes suddenly clouded over with the same expression he’d worn last night, which Neji recognized as lust, and a smirk played at the corners of his mouth. “Some of them were pretty sultry, too. What I would have given to see what was making you say my name like that-! I almost woke you up a couple times just to ask you, but I decided that I liked the show enough to let it keep playing.” 

True to form - and probably exactly as Shikamaru predicted, which only made Neji madder - Neji felt his cheeks heat uncomfortably hot from embarrassment, and he tried to shove Shikamaru away from him with one hand. “Get off me! Stop teasing me and let me up!” 

“Teasing? Now why would I do a thing like that?” Shikamaru asked with mock hurt in his eyes, catching Neji’s hand and preventing it from moving by lacing their fingers together. “Now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings, Neji. How are you going to make up for that?” 

Squirming slightly to try and get out from underneath Shikamaru, Neji tugged against their conjoined hands, but to no avail. “If what you’re expecting is ‘kiss it and make it feel better’, Shikamaru, the answer is no. Let me get up, smartass. I have to get ready before Hinata comes.” 

Shikamaru somehow managed to smirk and give Neji puppy-dog eyes at the same time. “Not even a little one? I promise I’ll be good and won’t take more than that.” 

Shifting and tugging at their conjoined hands again, Neji tried to hold out longer, but eventually Shikamaru’s pleading gaze broke down his resolve. “Okay, fine. Come here, you.” 

Reaching behind Shikamaru’s head, Neji hooked his hand behind his neck and guided his face closer until their lips met, his eyes reflexively closing when he felt the other caress his cheek. True to his word, Shikamaru didn’t push his boundaries, not even trying to get Neji to open his mouth, instead letting the light pressure of his lips make his point, keeping the kiss chaste and sweet while also making the room suddenly feel several degrees hotter. 

When Shikamaru pulled away, Neji didn’t want to let him, but overrode his baser instincts with a quiet sigh. His eyelashes fluttered open to see Shikamaru’s face only inches from his own, a wide smile starting to stretch his cheeks. 

“Good morning,” he whispered huskily, his eyes darting back and forth between each of Neji’s. 

“Good morning,” Neji repeated breathlessly, trying not to stare at Shikamaru’s lips and hoping that if he wasn’t succeeding, at least Shikamaru wouldn’t notice. 

A light chuckle told Neji that his hopes hadn’t been answered. “Do you want me kiss you again, Neji?” He asked quietly, trailing his thumb from the hand resting on Neji’s cheek over to gently nudge Neji’s lower lip. 

Instead of answering, Neji drew Shikamaru back down to him, feeling the vibrations of the phantom’s muted chuckle against his mouth when their lips met. Purposefully, Neji wound both his arms around Shikamaru’s neck and pulled him closer, urging him to open his mouth and invade Neji’s with that supple tongue he’d used to tease him the night before… in more places than just his mouth. Neji involuntarily shifted at the memory, feeling other places in his body start to tingle and heat up, and he resisted the urge to let out an aroused noise from the back of his throat. The logical half of his mind knew that he should pursue his original goal and get up so he would be ready when Hinata came, but the other half definitely wanted to stay in bed with Shikamaru, and that half was becoming increasingly more insistent. Unable to help himself, Neji pressed a sultry lick against Shikamaru’s bottom lip, pulling away for just a second to gauge the surprised happiness in Shikamaru’s expression before diving back in again so hard he felt his teeth clack against Shikamaru’s. Galvanized by the action, Shikamaru caught Neji’s face in both of his hands and pressed their mouths together more firmly, not even allowing Neji enough room to breathe. Air barely passing through his nose in quick pants, Neji pressed back, wanting Shikamaru closer, completely surrounding him, the only thing in his field of vision or any of his other senses and-! 

_ Bleeep! Bleeeeep! Bleeeeeeeeeeeep! Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! I _

Neji’s alarm went off again, more insistently than before, jolting both of them so hard that they smacked their faces together in a painful impact. Throwing off both the sheets and Shikamaru with them, Neji hurled an arm across his nightstand, knocking the alarm clock to the floor and finally causing it to cease its shrieking. 

A few moments of blessed silence resounded through the room before Neji rounded on Shikamaru. “I thought you turned that thing off?!?” 

“So did I!” Shikamaru rubbed his temple where Neji’s forehead had struck him. “I hit the button!” 

“Which button?!” 

“I don’t know, the big one! It made it go quiet!” 

Neji shoved his body ungainly from the bed to reach down and pick up the alarm clock on the floor, noting the large button on the top labeled  _ Snooze _ . “You didn’t turn it off; you hit the snooze button!” 

Shikamaru threw his hands into the air. “What’s the difference!?” 

“Snooze doesn’t shut it off; it just resets it to go off five minutes later!” 

“Well, how was I supposed to know that!?!? I wasn’t even born when those things were invented!” 

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Neji snapped, “Well, you’ve been around enough since! Haven’t you watched anybody else wake up in the last fifty years?” 

“Of course I haven’t!” Shikamaru snapped right back, folding his arms over his chest stubbornly. “It’s boring as all hell! I’ve never thought about watching someone else sleep until I met…” His eyes widening, Shikamaru trailed off as if realizing belatedly the magnitude of the confession he had accidentally made. 

Neji took a step towards Shikamaru like he was being reeled in by someone invisible force, all sense of irritation forgotten. “Until you met… me?” 

Shifting uncomfortably, Shikamaru looked down at the bedcovers and his fingers twining themselves nervously through the fabric. “Yeah. Until I saw you fall asleep in the clearing, I never considered watching someone as they slept. But you changed my mind.” 

Like an invisible hook had caught at his ribcage and tugged him forward again, Neji took another step toward Shikamaru. “How?” 

Shikamaru lifted his face again so he was looking directly into Neji’s eyes. “Because you changed forms, right in front of my eyes, and I couldn’t help but be struck with the feeling that if I looked away from you for even a second, I would miss it. I wanted to watch you change again because seeing your evolution was breathtaking.” 

“My... evolution?” Neji asked again, taking another step forward so his knees were almost brushing up against his bed. 

“Mm-hm.” Shikamaru reached up to lay a hand against Neji’s cheek now that he was in range. “You show me a different side of yourself when you’re asleep, a much younger and more innocent version of yourself. Watching you make that transition between then and now helps me understand a little of how you must have grown up… and that brings me one step closer to unravelling all the mysteries that make up you.” 

“Is that the only reason why you’re here?” Neji asked quietly, watching Shikamaru’s eyes with intensity. 

Shikamaru smirked and gave Neji’s cheek a pinch before withdrawing his hand. “Well, you are giving me a very compelling bonus.” Then his cheeky smile faded into something more serious. “No. No, it’s not the only reason why I’m here. I set out to unravel all your mysteries… but somewhere along the way, I got caught in all the trailing threads and now I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.” 

Suddenly uncomfortable, Neji looked away at the ground. When he went to speak, he found his throat was dry and it took several swallows before he managed to make a sound. “You… you should probably go. You don’t want to be within a half mile of this place when Hinata gets here, or she could recognize your aura, and then we’d both be in trouble.” 

Shikamaru suddenly stood, understanding in his eyes. “I scared you, didn’t I? Sorry about that. It was probably too much for you to handle at once. I’ll leave and let you think about it. See you this evening, Neji.” 

He turned to go, but just before he ghosted out through the window, Neji called out, stopping him. “Wait!” 

Turning back around with an eyebrow raised, Shikamaru pointed glanced at him, conveying his question without any words. Suddenly feeling sheepish for calling out to him, Neji scratched the back of his head and looked down at the floor. “Just… be careful, okay? No stunts like the one yesterday. I don’t want you to get caught by the Hyuuga patrols.” 

The only indication Shikamaru gave of affirmation was a slight tilt to his head. “Is six again okay, or do you want more time to figure out what you need to?” 

“Six… six should be fine.” 

“Good. See you then, Neji.” 

“See you then… Shikamaru…” 

But the phantom had already left, ghosting through the window without a backwards glance. With a sigh, Neji turned around and suddenly caught sight of his reflection in the mirror on top of his dresser. Shikamaru had convinced him to sleep without his pajama shirt last night, and so he could clearly see the damage that had been inflicted upon his body. His neck was marked with a rather impressive looking hickey, and a set of almost perfect teeth marks gleamed ruddily against his skin directly under the purple mark. Teeth marks?! Really?! When had Shikamaru bitten him? 

Heaving an even greater sigh, Neji walked to his dresser and dug through to almost the bottom of the drawer full of shirts. Today was going to have to be a turtleneck kind of day. Fantastic. 

 

⚞⚟

 

For the second time in as many days, Itachi found himself waking up in an unfamiliar room, but didn’t care one twit about it because of the large, comfortably familiar body resting next to him. Stretching with a smile, he felt the sheets ride down his back, exposing it to the air, slightly chillier than yesterday’s, but gathered that while he had slept shirtless, he was still wearing his pants, unlike the first morning. Owing to the very little sleep he’d gotten the previous night and his inability to amuse himself with the invisible passing scenery, he’d fallen asleep in the car a few hours after they’d left, but woken up again every time they’d changed cars and when they’d at last reached the noisy New York City. 

Although the drive from Chicago to New York would normally only take about twelve hours or so, they’d taken so many detours to confuse any potential pursuers that it had taken more than thirty. They’d headed directly south for a long time before the car had dropped Kisame and Itachi at the safe house overnight and continued to head south in the hopes of tricking anyone who might be following them into thinking that they were trying to make the Mexican border. After that, the car that had picked Kisame and Itachi up in the morning had headed directly west, away from New York, before they’d changed cars again in the parking lot of a vacant gas station just over the Kansas border, which it turn took them back east and a little more south through mostly back roads before they’d changed cars one final time in Virginia. The last car had taken them directly north, past D.C and Baltimore, and missing New York City entirely, they drove another hour north before finally doubling back and entering the city from the north side. In Itachi’s opinion, it was a little more deception and trickery than was strictly necessary, but Kisame was the one who had more experience in these matters, so he had agreed to the plan easily enough. 

It had been very late when they’d finally arrived at the place Itachi would learn to call his new home, perhaps even as late a five or six in the morning; it was impossible to tell without being able to judge the light, and he hadn’t bothered to ask anyone. From the distant sounds that permeated the city air that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and the stench of want, Itachi knew they weren’t in the greatest neighborhood, but he didn’t care. Anywhere was better than the personal hell he’d been locked up in for the past eight years. 

Even though he’d slept through most of the day, Itachi was still exhausted - mentally, at least - when they arrived, so much so that he’d almost fallen asleep standing up while Kisame was being welcomed back, prompting him to cut the meeting short to take him to bed. That was something that Itachi resented a little bit; yes, he was tired, but he could have just fallen asleep in a chair somewhere rather than disturbing to welcoming party, but Kisame had insisted that he was tired as well and that the meeting could just as easily take place the next morning- or afternoon, as the case might be, since it was already morning. 

After that, Kisame had brought Itachi to his room after telling the men who had met him that he would stay with him that night and they’d figure out other arrangements the next day. He’d spent a little time bringing Itachi around the room and letting him feel the placement of the furniture before all but commanding him to go to sleep, an order Itachi happily obeyed, curling up into a ball on the comfortable mattress Kisame had pushed him towards and letting the other man pull the covers up over him. He assumed that was when the larger man had taken off his shirt as well, though he was so tired he had no memory of it. 

Slipping stealthily from under the covers so as not to wake Kisame, Itachi snuck out of the bed and set out to explore the room. He remembered the vague placements of the things Kisame had pointed out to him the night before - table beside his side of the bed, dresser across the room, closet next to that, door to the hallway directly opposite the bed - but he hadn’t really had the time to map out what the room looked like in his head so he could move around in it comfortably, as he’d done for the padded white cell he’d lived in for the past eight years. Having a concrete understanding of where he was would make a little bit of the nervousness eating away at him go away- though, to be fair, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure whether the fluttering in his stomach was due to fear or excitement. 

Keeping an arm out in front of him to avoid bumping into anything, Itachi crept across the room in search of the largest and most convenient landmark: the dresser. Feeling like an idiot and glad that Kisame was asleep and not watching him flail about the room like a silly child, he swept his arms back and forth in front of him until his hip collided painfully with the corner of some unidentified piece of furniture. He hissed in pain, barely able to keep himself from swearing aloud and waking Kisame, before he allowed his hands to explore what his smarting hip had discovered but his ruined eyes couldn’t see. 

It was the dresser, he surmised after a few minutes of running his hands along its surface, but one of the waist-high ones with a vanity on top, rather than a taller one, like he’d expected, so his waving arms had gone right over the top of it. The discovery left him with an irritated grimace and a sore hip, but at least he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Leaning forward, he pressed his fingers to the wall directly above the dresser, not particularly surprised when they came into contact with a cool sheet of some smooth material that he guessed was a mirror. 

With a sigh and a grimace at the twinge in his hip - which would probably bruise, given how hard he’d hit the damn thing - Itachi pushed himself away from the dresser and trailed his hand along the wall until he came to the door that led out into the hallway. His fingers trailed down the grain of the wood before finding the doorknob. He nodded to himself; he wasn’t ready to leave the room yet, but it was good to know where it was. The placement of both the dresser and the door now firmly in his mind, Itachi kept going around the room, taking stock of the closet door, the window he hadn’t known was there until his hand traveling across the wall had suddenly met with glass instead of wallpaper, and the lamp on Kisame’s side of the bed before his knees hit the bed and he found himself standing directly over the man who had made this all possible. His breathing was deep and heavy, telling Itachi that he was still asleep. For a second, Itachi felt the wild desire to bend down and kiss him, but he pushed it back down. He couldn’t wake him; not yet, at least. 

Turning away from Kisame’s sleeping form, Itachi walked the length of the bed before finding the two posts at the bottom corners. He leaned in between them and held both at the same time, memorizing the space of the interval, before moving back to his side of the bed to find the bedside table and repeating the process all over again. He walked a little more quickly this time as he made his circuit, deftly placing his hands where he expected his landmarks to be. He missed a few times, searching for almost a minute against the wall for the window and almost smacking into the dresser again, but on the whole he was starting to get a feel of the place. After he completed his second circuit around the room, he did a third and then a fourth and a fifth until he could walk confidently around the whole room without missing any of his targets or running into anything. 

Itachi took a deep breath. Now came the real test. 

Very carefully, he walked into the center of the room - or what he deemed to be approximately the center of the room - and faced the bed, which he could pinpoint the location of from Kisame’s soft snores. Deliberately, he turned away from the bed and started walking until he reached the wall, then he held out his hand. 

Damn. He’d been aiming for the closet, but all he felt beneath his fingertips was wallpaper. Swiping his hand about a foot to both the left and right, he discovered that he was only about six inches to the left of the closet that he’d been aiming for. 

Well, for a first try, it wasn’t horrendous. 

Gritting his teeth, Itachi turned around, aiming for a new spot, and started walking toward it. About what he guessed would be a step away, he stopped, feeling around in the air for the corners of the dresser so he wouldn’t smash into them again. When he didn’t feel anything, he took another step forward and found the edge of the dresser just out of reach of his original position. So the room was about a pace wider than he had anticipated. He could work with that. Turning around, he pressed his back against the dresser to gauge his placement in the room, then started forward again. 

This time he underestimated the length of the room, hitting the bedpost on the way to the window. The sound of sliding fabric emanated from the bed as Kisame shifted in his sleep, and Itachi froze and held down a curse under his breath, hoping that he wouldn’t wake up. After several seconds ticked by and the regular sound of Kisame’s deep breathing began to permeate the room, Itachi relaxed again and got his bearing before continuing on to the window, finally hitting it dead center. Success. 

Now that he’d managed once successfully, Itachi’s nerves lessened somewhat, and he felt some of the tension he hadn’t realized was in his shoulders drain out of his body. He could do this. Very carefully, he turned around and took a deep breath, then headed across the room again, going from landmark to landmark in random order and at rapidly increasing tempo. 

Around and around Itachi went, his concentration growing as he tagged each landmark more surely and accurately each time, hardly paying attention to the regular pattern of Kisame’s breathing turning into an irregular one as he shifted again, finally being drawn out of his sleeping state by the sound of Itachi’s feet beating regularly against the floorboards. 

“What are you doing?” He finally asked after watching Itachi move without any clear direction around his room for almost a full minute, breaking him out of his concentration and almost causing him to trip over his own feet in shock at being directly addressed. 

“Kisame!” Itachi cried in surprise as he righted himself from his near-tumble, his head whipping towards the bed even though he couldn’t see Kisame. “Did I wake you up? Sorry; I was trying to be quiet-” 

“It’s fine,” Kisame interrupted, bringing the tirade of words to an abrupt halt. “I was going to wake up soon anyway. You didn’t answer my question, though; what were you doing?” 

“Memorizing the room.” To show off, Itachi strode confidently towards the bed, tagging the bedpost with his palm before trailing his hand across the covers to find a spot where he could sit down without settling his weight on top of Kisame’s legs. “See?” 

“Impressive,” he remarked, sitting up straighter so he could lean forward and wrap Itachi in his embrace- which he did, much to the blind man’s chagrin. “How long did it take you?” 

“About twenty minutes,” Itachi replied, both embarrassed by and comfortable in the embrace. “It’d take a bit longer than that for a larger room, though, but I’m confident I could walk around here comfortably now unless someone moved anything. Of course, I probably won’t be staying here, so it was kind of a useless exercise anyway, but I was glad of the practice.” 

Unexpectedly, Kisame’s arms tightened around Itachi. “You… won’t be staying here?” 

“In this room,” Itachi clarified, his face pointing down towards his lap. “You told the men you met last night that I’d stay with you for last night, but we’d find alternate sleeping arrangements for me. I assumed that would mean not with you, and not in this room.” 

“So… you don’t want to stay with me?” 

“I didn’t say that, now did I?” Itachi turned his face to the side to press his cheek into the top of Kisame’s spiky hair. “I’d love to stay with you, but I don’t think that would be wise or appropriate. You’re a leader now, Kisame, so you have to be careful what people think of you. I think it would be better if we slept apart, for now at least. I don’t want any of the people who follow you to start spreading rumors about you.” 

“I don’t care about that kind of thing!” Kisame announced, releasing Itachi from his embrace and taking hold of both of his shoulders. “So what if people talk, so what if they spread rumors! That just makes it easier for them to underestimate us, and easier for us to show them up. I’m not the kind of man who worries about what other people say, Itachi; why do you think I could work in a profession like nursing, looking like I do? I refuse to lie to people who will be trusting me to lead them! What are we hiding, anyway? The fact that we might be in some kind of  _ relationship _ ?” 

The verbally italicized word caused Itachi to freeze and his heart rate to go up so quickly, he was glad that he no longer had the heart rate monitor around his wrist to give off an alarm when the danger zone was reached. “A-are we?” 

“That depends.” Kisame shifted away, letting Itachi sit up without any support. “Do you want to be?” 

Itachi automatically averted his face from Kisame’s gaze so the bigger man wouldn’t be able to read what he was thinking. Yesterday morning, when he’d woken up and told Kisame that he wanted to stay with him forever, he’d dismissed it as the rush of endorphins from finally escaping the hell his life had been for the past eight years. He also knew that people who spent a lot of time together, particularly in highly stressful environments, tended to form stronger emotional bonds because the stress caused them to latch onto anything they could to make themselves feel valued. He was sure of what he was feeling, but he also knew that the heady rush of endorphins hadn’t quie left his system yet, and he had spent the last eight years in the most stressful environment possible, the last six-to-eight months of it in extremely close quarters with Kisame, so unfortunately he was checked off in both those categories, and he knew Kisame would know it, too. Still, he wouldn’t allow himself to keep quiet, so he squeezed his hands tighter in his lap to stop their trembling and gave a nod to himself before turning his face back to Kisame. 

“Kisame, I lo-”

Before Itachi could finish the word, Kisame placed a hand over his mouth, cutting off the sound escaping him. Even if he wanted to, Itachi couldn’t have been able to hide the hurt that spiraled across his features at the action, and a wave of rejection and injured pride crashed over him so hard, he was sure he would have been blinking back tears if he’d still possessed the ability. Shaking off Kisame’s hand, Itachi turned away from him. 

“If you didn’t want to hear me say it, you should have just said so earlier,” he muttered, trying to get up from the bed before his heart could suffer any more permanent damage, but Kisame’s hard darted forward and grabbed his arm at the last second. 

“Damn it, that’s not what I meant! Don’t-! Just listen, Itachi, okay?” 

“Fine!” Itachi snapped, sitting back down on the bed but purposefully avoiding his face from Kisame’s. He heard a sigh from Kisame before he continued. 

“We both know what I’m going to say; I saw it on your face when you were deciding you to respond. So let me just say this: I know a lot about psychology, and I know that people can trick their emotions into believing a lot of things, especially after going through what happened to you. I don’t want you to say something now that you’ll regret later.” 

Itachi didn’t know why that single sentence made him so irritated, but it did. “Quit trying to protect me, Kisame! I can take care of myself, especially my own emotions-” 

“Protect you? Hell, no! This is one of the most selfish things I’ve ever done!” Kisame grabbed Itachi by the back of his neck and brought him in close enough to feel the heat of his breath on his face. “When you tell me you love me, it’s going to be absolutely not because I was the only person who was nice to you in the last eight years and one hundred percent because you’ve fallen for me as hard as I have for you.” 

Itachi froze for a second time in as many minutes as Kisame’s words sank in.  _ Because you’ve fallen for me as hard as I have for you… I have… for you… I’ve fallen for you…  _

A huge, silly grin spread across his face as he got what Kisame was trying to say, and he tackled the other man in a giant hug. His overly-strong body saved Kisame from falling over backwards back onto the bed from the force of the impact, but even so, Itachi heard a painful-sounding smack when his forehead thudded into Kisame’s chin, forcing his teeth together with a sharp click. Immediately he backed off again, horrified by what he might have done, but Kisame only laughed. 

“Now  _ that’s _ the reaction I was hoping to see.” 

“Promise you mean it?” Itachi pressed, grabbing Kisame’s face in his hands so he could feel the skin around his mouth stretch as he spoke. 

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” By the way his cheekbones raised slightly, Itachi could tell that he was smiling, and couldn’t help but grin back. 

Using his hands as a guide, he leaned forward and kissed Kisame, feeling his lips turn up at the corners. When he pulled back, Itachi found that he was breathing hard, even though the kiss had lasted mere seconds and hadn’t been rough. “If it’s time you want,” he said, placing his forehead against Kisame’s, “I can give it to you. I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to be convinced it's really me talking, not my endorphins or whatever- within reason, of course. Just don’t expect me to change my mind.”

“I would expect nothing less from you.” Kisame reached up and adjusted the bandana over Itachi’s eyes that he had worn to bed, fixing it so that it lay more flush against his skin. “After all, it’s a little late in the game now to be changing your mind.” 

“That’s why I don’t intend to.” Itachi gave Kisame one last smile before leaning back and standing up. “Now, we should probably get ready to meet your subordinates before they get worried and bust in here to check on you. You wouldn’t happen to know all of the names of those men who met us yesterday, would you? I think we need to formulate a plan.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

“Neji, are you okay? You’re acting even weirder than you were yesterday.” 

Neji was shaken out of his thoughts for the second time in as many days by the quiet voice of his younger cousin, her pale eyes giving him a disapproving look. Starting a little guiltily, Neji sent a smile in her direction and shifted into a slightly more comfortable position. He and Hinata were sitting cross legged on his living room floor, close enough that their knees were touching. She had been practicing opening up the channels of power in her body to activate the Byakugan, though she hadn’t yet been successful at it, and Neji’s mind had wandered during her meditation enough for him not to notice her stopping her practice. 

“Sorry, Hinata,” he apologized automatically, stretching his arms out in front of him to work the kink from his shoulders from sitting still too long. “I’ve been letting my mind wander too much these past few days. Maybe I should be the one doing these meditation exercises instead of you.” He forced a chuckle that he hoped didn’t sound too fake. “What was it that you wanted?” 

By the narrowing of her eyes, Neji could tell that Hinata wasn’t buying what he was saying, but she let it go in favor of asking her original, unheard question. “Hm. Well, while you were spaced out, I asked you if you thought all this time spent doing nothing but meditation was actually doing something for me, or whether it had another purpose.” 

Neji’s eyebrows knitted together; he could tell by the deepening vocal fry in Hinata’s tone that she was very irritated, and that coupled with the fact that she’d come to him for advice instead of her father meant that this was serious. “Explain.” 

Hinata drew in a deep breath as she let her gaze fall downwards to her lap, where her hands were clenching and unclenching in a vicious cycle in an unsuccessful attempt to stop them from shaking. “Is this really helping me? All these hours just sitting here, doing nothing but focusing and concentrating on something I can’t even feel? Am I actually learning anything… or am I just doing this every day with you to get me away from the house and out of the way of everyone else? Are the Elders just sweeping me under the carpet because I haven’t even been able to activate my eyes yet?” 

“Oh, Hinata…” Neji breathed, reaching out to gently brush away the bangs hiding her dispassionate eyes. “Of course what you’re doing is important! I know it seems boring and tedious now, but I promise it will get better. Everyone starts like this; even I spent hundreds of hours in the exact same position you’re in when I was younger.” 

“But not when you were sixteen,” she muttered, her gaze not meeting his. 

Neji sucked in a sharp breath he immediately wished he hadn’t when he was the hurt look on Hinata’s face, like he had just backed up her point without meaning to. He struck out on damage control, carefully choosing each one of his words to avoid making her more upset. 

“Just because you’re a late bloomer doesn’t mean you’ll be incapable of doing the Byakugan. There are plenty of Hyuuga who don’t learn how to control - or even activate - their until their teen years! One of the elders even told me that he was nineteen before he could fully control his, and look where at what he is now. So you have nothing to worry about, Hinata. It will come when your body is ready to support it, and no sooner, so all you can do until that time is practice and prepare for it as best you can.” 

“That’s easy for you to say,” Hinata muttered, something like a shadow of pain reflected in her pale eyes. “You were able to use your Byakugan when you were nine. You don’t know what it’s like to hear everyone whispering around wherever you go, wondering if you’re really the daughter of one of the current heads of the family, given that I can’t do anything!” 

“Hinata!” Neji leaned forward and grabbed Hinata’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him. The pain he saw in her eyes, the kind he used to feel before he’d steeled his heart to any outside intervention - with, as the current situation he found himself in seemed to suggest, had been only partially effective - made his chest feel tight with a phantom remembrance. “I know it’s hard, in more ways than I can recount, but please believe me when I say you just have to persevere. It doesn’t ever completely go away, but it will get better, I promise. When you’re old enough, you can move out like I did, and then you won’t have to be around all the stares anymore. It might take a few years, but it’s worth the wait, I promise.” 

Hinata sighed, breaking the eye contact she’d held with Neji throughout his speech. “I know, Neji. I know it will get better. It’s just… knowing it will get better doesn’t seem to matter right now, when everything is happening.” 

“I know.” Without giving her time to pull away, Neji wrapped his arms around Hinata, bringing her in close against his chest. “I know knowing doesn’t help. I just… don’t know what else I can say other than I’m sorry that I’m not there any more to protect you.” 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for-” 

“Yes, I do,” Neji interrupted, his embrace tightening almost infinitesimally around Hinata. “I’m sorry I left you alone there when I promised I’d keep you safe from them.” 

“It’s not your fault, Neji; you didn’t have a choice-” 

“And you’re wonderful for telling me that, even if it’s not true,” he interrupted again, gently patting the back of Hinata’s head before letting her pull back. “I don’t know what I did to deserve a little sister like you.” 

Hinata’s face lit up when Neji called her his little sister. Even though they weren’t blood siblings, only cousins, she had often told Neji that he was the big brother she had always wanted, and it never failed to cheer her up when he caller her that. Now that she was smiling once again, he pushed her back to the position she had been sitting in and adjusted himself opposite, but this time took ahold of her hands. 

“Now that we’ve cleared that up, why don’t you try one more time? I have an idea that might give that bothersome family of ours something better to gossip about.” 

The smile didn’t leave Hinata’s face, but her eyebrows did draw together slightly. “Sure, but… why are you holding my hands? You’ve never done that before.” 

“Because I’m going to do something I’ve never done before.” He flashed her a reassuring smile. “Do you trust me?” 

Nodding emphatically, Hinata closed her eyes again. “Of course!” 

As Neji watched, Hinata took several deep breaths to calm down her heart rate and began to focus on the channels of energy inside of her that she had yet been unable to access. Her shoulders were more tense than before, likely because of his hands on hers, but when he gave them a light squeeze, she forced herself to relax and the tension drained out of her body. When he assumed that enough time had passed for her to be adequately moving power throughout her body, Neji gathered the energy resting in his own core and tapped into it, bringing it up to his eyes. 

“Byakugan,” he said quietly but distinctly, knowing that Hinata could hear the word even if the only sign she gave was a slight shiver as the wave of power washed over her. 

With his vision now unhindered, Neji found himself momentarily distracted by the new influx of colors and shapes that his cleared eyes allowed him to see, as he always did, but the distraction passed quickly and his gaze narrowed as he focused on Hinata. 

Looking closely at another Hyuuga with the Byakugan eyes was considered one of the most invasive things a Hyuuga could do, because it allowed the person looking to map out every power line and wash of emotion in their body. In certain cases, however, it could be used to figure help another learn to control their own power, as Neji was doing for Hinata now. After carefully letting his eyes sift through the colors of her emotions - mostly a mixture of nervousness, irritation, and conviction - he found the unique color of the Hyuuga energy, a shade that existed nowhere else but in the body of a Hyuuga. 

Usually, the energy flowed freely through a Hyuuga’s body unless it was called upon, when it flowed upwards to their eyes, and dissipated back through the body once it was released. In Hinata’s case, since she was focusing on trying to activate her eyes, it should have been all in her head, at least, even if she couldn’t get all of it completely focused on her eyes. Instead, however, it was stuck in her throat, like an invisible barrier had formed where her mouth should be and wasn’t letting the energy any higher. 

Well, that was the answer to that question. Hinata couldn’t activate her eyes because the energy simply wasn’t there to do it; it set out for her eyes, but never reached them. Why, of all places, would it get stuck in her throat, though? 

Neji’s eyes widened as he realized the answer to his own question. All her life, Hinata had been self-conscious of her panic attacks and nervousness, especially her stutter. It wasn’t uncommon for people to get hung up on a flaw they saw in themselves and allow it to stop themselves from achieving they were working for, and the Byakugan was no exception. Hinata couldn’t activate her eyes because she wasn’t letting her own power overcome the one thing she hated about herself over everything else, likely because she felt like she could never overcome it under her own power. 

Neji frowned in concentration as he thought about what he should do. Should he just come out and tell Hinata what was stopping her from activating her eyes? That was probably a bad idea; there was a very high chance it would backfire and end up making her more focused on her voice, rather than allowing her to bypass it. What, then, should he do? 

_ Give her a taste of it _ , his inner voice suddenly supplied, his gaze locked on the pulsating ball of energy located at Hinata’s throat.  _ Help her do it once, and she’ll get hooked. Then you can teach her how to bypass her fear.  _

It was a fair enough plan. Neji gently leaned forward and pressed a finger against Hinata’s throat, feeling her jump at the sudden contact but not lose her focus. The energy in her throat shifted toward his finger like it was a magnet, and he slowly dragged it upwards a little, watching as it pressed against the invisible barrier and pushed it back the tiniest bit. 

“I want you to pay very close attention to me,” he said quietly so not as to disturb Hinata’s concentration. “No, just listen,” he interjected quickly when she opened her mouth, worried about her concentrating on her vocal chords and losing focus, and she shut it again with a snap, nodding her head emphatically, her eyes still closed. “Don’t say anything. Just focus on my finger here. Do you feel it?” 

When Hinata gave another nod, Neji brushed his finger down her throat, watching the bobbing energy follow it. “Good, just like that. Focus on this, and nothing else. Don’t think about your throat, or your mouth, or even your eyes. Just think about focusing all your power right where my finger is. Can you do that?” 

Clearly confused as to the purpose of the exercise, Hinata frowned slightly, but nodded. Watching her carefully, Neji traced his finger up and down the side of her neck, tracing the power with his eyes as it bobbed up and down with his finger, pushing a little more height into its arc with every upward climb. When he tried to encourage it to go up higher, however, it got stuck again - albeit a little further up than before, but still trapped underneath an invisible barrier. 

  What more could he do to try to break through that barrier? Normally, the answer would to gradually diminish the person’s perception of their own faults and have them overcome the self-consciousness on their own before attempting the Byakugan again, but Neji had been trying that for years with Hinata’s stutter and made barely made any progress, so that wasn’t an option, especially since he needed to smash through that barrier immediately, if only temporarily. Hinata could figure out later what to do to make the barrier disappear permanently, especially if she had the motivation of seeing the beautiful world only the Byakugan eyes could perceive. 

Well, Neji supposed, he could always just go for brute force. Even in the most impossible of cases, sometimes a good head start could give the upper hand. Speed did overcome clearance, after all. 

Very deliberately, Neji trailed his finger back down Hinata’s neck, almost to her collarbone, then without warning, jerked it up to rest on her temple. Startled by the abrupt shift but still obediently concentrating on Neji’s finger, Hinata refocused her energy on her temple next to her eye, the ball of pulsating blue power resisting just a second at the invisible barrier before it shattered through and engulfed her upper face in a pale internal glow. 

“Now!” Neji instructed urgently. “Say it now!” 

Either his tone or his words galvanized Hinata into action, because she jumped at his command, the word that would activate her eyes falling from her mouth, slightly stuttered but coherent enough to get the job done. 

“Bya- Byakugan!” 

Neji could tell that it had worked as soon as the word hit the empty air, and by the way Hinata sucked in a sharp intake of breath, he knew that she could tell, too. He watched her eyelashes flutter up to reveal her pale eyes, shining from within with a power only a Hyuuga could access, and as soon as her gaze fell on his face, closer to hers than it had been before, she let out a breathy gasp. 

“It-it’s b-beautiful, N-Neji…” 

Unfortunately, the emotion of the situation caused her to stutter, and as soon as she was reminded of the reason why she had been unable to activate her eyes in the first place, the power centered behind her eyes went haywire and dissipated throughout her body once more, wrenching away her extra sight despite how hard she appeared to be holding on to it. 

“You saw it, didn’t you?” Neji asked quietly after Hinata stopped blinking, pulling his hand away from her temple and deactivating his own eyes. “What did you think-?” 

He was cut off before he could finish his sentence by Hinata jumping forward and enveloping him in a hug so tight, he thought he wasn’t going to be able to breathe until she let go. 

“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear, her arms locking around his rib cage even tighter. “You don’t know how much that meant to me. I’ll never forget how beautiful it was, Neji, even if I only saw it for a second.” 

“That was the idea,” Neji gasped out, trying desperately to breathe and finding himself failing miserably. “Do you think that you could let go now?” 

“Oh-! Sorry!” Hinata released Neji from her bone-crushing hug, but didn’t back far away, instead taking hold of his hands in her own. “All those colors, Neji, and the way they moved! Is that really what you see every time you use the Byakugan?” 

Neji couldn’t help but grin at her enthusiasm. “Yep, and sometimes more. Everything you were seeing originated from me, a living human, and with ghosts you can sometimes see more- things that can even tell you how they died if you pay enough attention.” 

“Really?” Hinata’s eyes were wide and euphoric, excitement dripping from her tone. “So, what I was seeing, that was all your… what? Aura? Energy?” 

“Power,” Neji corrected, then added a little self-consciously, “and… emotional energy.” 

“Emotional… energy?” Hinata jerked back in surprise, almost as if she’d been shocked. “You mean… I was looking at your emotions?” 

Neji couldn’t help but look away from Hinata’s wide, shocked gaze. “Yeah. That’s why we don’t normally do it in close quarters with others, because it’s so invasive.” 

“So… you could see my emotions, too?” 

Nodding a little guiltily, Neji replied, “Yeah. I could see yours.” 

“What did you see?” 

The frank question threw Neji slightly off guard, especially when he saw the genuine curiosity in Hinata’s eyes. “I saw a lot of balled up anxiety and nerves, mostly centered around here,” he finally said, gesturing to her throat, and he saw her wince slightly. “But,” he continued, hoping to soften the blow of his words somewhat, “I also saw a lot of determination. I have faith that you’ll overcome it, Hinata- just as I always have.” 

“You really can tell all that, just by some swirls of color?” Hinata asked, her hands opening and clenching in her lap like she wanted to grab him again and force him to tell her everything- but she was too shy to do more than ask politely. 

“It takes quite a bit of practice, but yes.” Neji flashed her a smile. “What colors did you see for me? I could help you identify them.” 

Hinata bit her lip in thought. “Well, it was really quick, and there were like nothing I’d ever seen before, but I think there was a color that would be purple if purple was a warm color instead of a cool color…” 

_ That would be me being proud of her… _

“...and one that was kinda bluey, but bright, not dark or navy-like, and shimmered like it was gilded…” 

_ Affection, again for her…  _

“...and I’m pretty sure the last one was the equivalent of pinkish, but with streaks of black through it…” 

_ And that would be my sexual satisfaction- WAIT, WHAT???!!!?!?!  _

Neji grabbed Hinata by the shoulders, shocking her into stopping mid-word, her mouth hanging open in what might have been a comical way in a less serious situation. “Are you sure that’s what you saw?!?”

Letting out a squeak, Hinata managed a yes, and Neji immediately dropped his hands from her side, feeling bad about scaring her, then let his face down into his hands. He was letting this whole situation with Shikamaru get out of hand. He had gone into it willingly and didn't regret the things they'd done so far, but if Hinata could see the effects of it - even if she didn't know what they meant - anyone else who looked could see it as well, and that was the dangerous part. The Hyuuga clan was a very traditional one, and had very strict rules about what they thought was appropriate behavior and what was not, especially before marriage. 

Taking a few deep breaths to steady himself, Neji forced his head out of his hands so he could look at Hinata straight on, pulling a ragged smile over his bruised expression. Her pale eyes watched him with a mixture of fascination and nervous attention, as if she didn’t know whether she should be afraid of him or for him. 

“I’m sorry for shouting at you,” he said as gently as he could with the tight emotions wound up inside him like a ball made of rubber bands stretched past their breaking point and threatening to break. “I just… it took me by surprise.” 

“Are you going to tell me? Whatever it was I saw that scared you so much?” 

_ I’m not scared-! _ Neji almost retorted, but bit back the words before the came out because he had promised himself a long time ago that he would never lie to Hinata. In the end, he simply said, “No,” and left it at that, turning away so he wouldn’t have to see her disappointed expression. 

A hand slamming onto the floor between them jumped Neji enough to make him jerk back and see Hinata, her face angry and her palm still on the floor. 

“This is what I was talking about yesterday!” She cried in an uncharacteristic display of anger, her hand trembling against the ground. “I can help you like you’ve helped me, Neji, but only if you let me in!” 

It pained Neji to crush her hopes and turn her down when she was offering him something that meant more to both of them than anything else - trust - but this was a problem that he couldn’t involve her in. Shaking his head a little sadly, Neji told her as much. 

“I’m sorry, Hinata. I appreciate it, I really do. It’s just... this… this is one of those things I have to sort out on my own.” 

With a sigh, Hinata retracted her hand and sat back, a resigned look on her face. “I should have guessed as much. I’m still not much next to you, after all.” 

“Hinata, that’s not-” 

“It’s okay, Neji.” Standing up, Hinata flashed him a reassuring smile. “I knew what you meant. Someday, you can rely on me for everything, and while today I’ve come closer to that goal, I’ve still got a long ways to go. So don’t worry about me, Neji. After all, I’ve got something I can tell everyone back home to stop them from talking about me behind my back now, thanks to you.” 

_ When _ , Neji wondered, watching Hinata stand up from her spot on the living room floor,  _ did Hinata get so strong?  _

“Don’t forget your umbrella,” he warned automatically as Hinata took several steps toward the door and reached up on her tiptoes to pull her raincoat off the hook neck to the entrance. 

When Hinata turned back to him, her face held the tiniest bit of sadness. “I won’t. Well, I better head out. They’ll be expecting me back soon, anyway.” She turned to leave, then abruptly turned back, the light of remembering something in her eyes. “Oh, right. I was supposed to tell you that Father asked for you to come to the household tomorrow after our lesson. The Elders want to speak to you about something. Should I tell them you can make it?” 

_ The Elders _ ? Neji could only think of three reasons why they would want to talk to him, and none of them were pleasant prospects. Still, a summons from the Hyuuga elders was not something to blow off lightly. He nodded. “Yeah, I can make it. Tell them I’ll be there.” 

“I will.” Hinata gave him one last smile before opening the door and stepping out into the drizzling rain. “Bye, Neji. See you tomorrow.” 

The door shut before he had the chance to say it back to her. 

With a sigh, Neji let himself fall back to lay on the ground, his eyes unfocused and staring through the ceiling. Unthinkingly, he raised one hand and reached upwards as if to grasp something, perhaps the sun, hiding today behind a bank of clouds, or the clouds themselves, obscured from view by the ceiling. With the wakeup call he’d gotten that morning and the conversations with Hinata, he had a lot to think about, but even before he could let his mind relax enough to mull things over, he knew two things would fight their way to the forefront of his mind and stay there. 

The first was that he was getting too close to Shikamaru. Not in a physical intimacy sense of the word, or an emotional sense, either - after all, he’d chosen to further both the night before with no qualms - but in the actual distance sense of the word. Shikamaru shouldn’t have followed him to Seattle; it was too dangerous, especially for a ghost like him. It would only be a matter of time before someone sensed his presence, and then there would be a full scale witch hunt going on through the streets of the city, something Neji would even be forced to participate in. The safest thing for him would be to return to Konoha and pretend like all this had never happened. 

The second was that Neji didn’t want to let Shikamaru go. 

 

⚞⚟

 

“Did you get my email? I sent you the link to two different scholarship programs, and one site that has tips for students who want to go to college but aren’t sure if they can afford it. I thought you could look at them and decide which one you want to apply for.” 

Sasuke sat down at his desk, operating his mouse with one hand as he cradled his phone between his other shoulder and his cheek. The message in his inbox said the email had sent, so he nodded and leaned back in his chair. 

“No, not yet- oh, wait, there it is!” Sakura’s tone grew excited on the other end of the line as she scanned through the links Sasuke had sent and the brief descriptions of each he had provided. “Wow, these are great! How did you find them?” 

“The scholarships came on my father’s recommendation, but I found the other site myself when I was going through my own application process.” Sasuke leaned back in his desk chair, trying to keep his smugness from his voice. “I thought it would be a great resource for you, so I included it.” 

“No, it’s great! Thanks!” Sakura’s voice drifted off as she started reading through the materials Sasuke had sent her on the other end of the line. “Alright, I’m going to look through all these. Was there anything else you needed to tell me?” 

“Yeah, actually. I wanted to ask you if you had any teachers you knew of who you could ask for recommendations, because a couple of the scholarships need them.”

“Sure, I know a couple, but school hasn’t even started yet. It’s still only August.” 

Leaning forward in his chair, Sasuke exclaimed excitedly, “Which is all the more reason to figure out everything now! Some of the scholarships are school-specific, and you need to apply by the first early decision deadline in early November to even be considered. Now, the applications are evaluated all together after a deadline and not on a first come, first served basis, but it still doesn’t hurt to get in the top of the pile. Therefore, I think we should have all of the applications you plan to send in done by the middle of October.” 

“October?!” Sakura yelped so loudly in Sasuke’s ear that he almost dropped the phone, and he had to bring it away from his ear, wincing. “Are you crazy? It’s already August!” 

“I thought you just said that it was only August,” Sasuke teased lightly, then his tone turned serious. “I’m not kidding, Sakura. If I’m going to help you with this, we’re going into it with no holds barred, and that means at top speed. Do you think you can keep up with that?” 

“I… I’ll try,” Sakura said dubiously, her voice ringing cautiously through the connection. “I don’t know, but I’ll try.” 

“That’s all you need to do.” Sasuke nodded, pleased. “I’ll let you go so you can finish reading what I sent you. Unless there was something else you wanted to ask me?” 

“No, I think that was it. I’ll look through these and decide which ones I want to apply for. Thanks again for doing this for me, Sasuke. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.” 

“Ha!” Sasuke chuckled good-naturedly. “Let’s see if you’re still saying that after October rolls around.” 

“I look forward to it,” she teased right back. “Bye, Sasuke. Talk to you later.” 

“Talk to you later,” he echoed, and heard Sakura laugh lightly before a click told him she’d hung up. 

The smile only remained on his face for a few more seconds before it slipped down his face like thick mud off a shirt treated with hydrophobic chemicals. Sakura was a wonderful girl who never failed to lighten his spirits, but after letting her go, Sasuke couldn’t help but let himself slump back into the depression he’d been feeling ever since he’d heard the news that Itachi had left. Helping Sakura with her dream had, for a time, given him something else to concentrate on, but when he wasn’t actively doing anything, like right now, the dim lethargy would start to creep over his body again, and he’d feel the urge to lay back down on his bed and ignore the world. 

Just as he was about to give in to the base urge and let the darkness swamp over him again, Sasuke’s phone rang. Glancing down at the caller ID, he saw that it was Sakura again, and a slight frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. Did she have a question about the materials he’d sent her? Or did she have something she’d forgotten to tell him? Either way, why had she decided to call and not text? These questions in his mind, Sasuke answered the call and held the phone up to his ear. 

“Hello?” 

Nothing. Abject silence. Not even the sound of breathing came through the phone line, and Sasuke’s frown deepened. What was Sakura doing? Had he been butt-dialed, or was it a prank? Or, perhaps, had she already hung up, realizing the mistake before him? He pulled the phone away from his ear, glancing down at the screen to verify that the call really was connected, and Sakura’s name glowed at the top of his screen, along with a time to show how long the call had been. Bringing the phone back to his ear, he listened harder, but was still unable to pick out even the sound of breathing on the other end, though he thought, now that he was paying attention, that he could very faintly hear the sound of laughter from a few rooms over. 

Finally deciding that he’d had enough of the charade, Sasuke snapped into the phone, “Look, I don’t know who you are or why you have Sakura’s phone, but this isn’t funny. Either start talking, or I’ll hang up.” He waited a good five seconds more, but still heard no sound from the other end of the line, so he snapped, “Fine. You had your chance.” 

Grimacing angrily, he disconnected the call and let his phone fall on his desk while his head fell into his hands. Well, he had one thing to thank the mysterious caller for: the irritation the incident had caused was just enough for him overcome the creeping dark depression that urged him to give up and galvanize his mind to focus on something other than Itachi. 

Unsurprisingly, the issue his mind settled on to distract himself from his current situation was one that had been unconsciously nudging at the back of his thoughts ever since Sakura had told him of her own dream and he’d promised to help her achieve it. He’d been too afraid to act on his dream so far, but Sakura’s determination had shown him that dreams were achievable, if only one decided to reach toward them. 

It took quite a few minutes of staring blankly at his computer screen before he could work up the motivation and courage to open up an email to his academic advisor and start typing. 

Halfway across the country, Naruto stared blankly at the screen of Sakura’s phone, which he had grabbed as soon as she had left the room and stopped it from falling asleep and locking. He knew she hadn’t known he was listening while she’d spoken on the phone to Sasuke, but the fact that she could speak so jovially to him while the same pleasure was denied Naruto really stung. As badly as they’d fought and as hurriedly as they’d made up before he’d left Konoha, Naruto missed him terribly, and it hurt to hear him joke so casually with Sakura while he was standing right there. 

So, in a moment of weakness, he’d pressed the redial button on the phone in his hand and called Sasuke back, desperate to even hear his voice. His heart had jumped at the first hello, and he’d launched into a tirade of how much he missed Sasuke without giving him a chance to answer any of his questions or even respond to anything he said. This continued for almost a minute before Sasuke's voice had cut sharply through the tirade, clearly irritated and having heard nothing Naruto had been saying. 

“ _ Look, I don’t know who you are or why you have Sakura’s phone, but this isn’t funny. Either start talking, or I’ll hang up. _ ” 

The harsh words and biting tone had shocked Naruto enough that he had frozen, the words about to leave his mouth trembling instead at the tip of his tongue, trapped by the tears that suddenly threatened to spill from his eyes. Unable to speak, he’d head Sasuke’s voice again after a few seconds had passed. 

“ _ Fine. You had your chance. _ ” 

The call disconnected, leaving Naruto still shocked speechless, staring down at the phone screen as it dimmed and then faded to black. He only noticed he was crying when a droplet of water splashed down from his cheek and landed on the screen before fading away into nothingness. Angrily, he swiped a hand across his cheek to dispel the remainder of the tears and threw the phone back where Sakura had left it. 

He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized earlier that Sasuke wouldn’t be able to hear him. After all, ghosts didn’t appear in video and audio recordings and didn’t show up in pictures. Therefore, there was no way his voice could have been picked up by the cell phone microphone and transmitted to Sasuke, even though the Uchiha was normally able to hear him. 

Wiping his hands across his cheeks one last time to assure himself that no tears remained to accuse him of emotional weakness, Naruto pushed himself off the floor and floated through the ceiling, looking for one of their gradually diminishing group to harass someone still among the living with. 

“Kiba! Where are you? I wanna prank someone!” 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Kisame settle into their lives with their new gang, and Neji starts to get more comfortable with the idea of having Shikamaru around.

⚞⚟

 

“How have the other aspects been faring?” 

“Fairly well - we have plenty of liquid assets, and our money has been laundered well, so we’re quite stable financially. Our only unfortunate circumstance is our low numbers- but, then again, that may also be helping to keep our costs down, so it’s a double edged sword.” 

“What are our numbers, then?” 

“About ten in the inner circle, and another twenty informants and runners. We’ve downsized quite a bit since you left.” 

“I can tell that. Only thirty, though? I remember it being much larger. What happened? Police bust?” 

“Unfortunately, yes, about five years back, and not soon after we were attacked by the gang who controls the territory directly south of us, the Ryuchi group. After taking the chickenshits who were scared enough to jump ship and abandon us in favor of the Ryuchi, they decimated our ranks. Other than the few pseudo-gangs of less than ten members, we’re the smallest gang on the east side of the city now.” 

“And we’d be the smallest organized gang in the whole city if not for the stupid Howling Wolves over on the west side. A similar thing happened to them several years before us, but they took it worse than us and they’re down to about twenty members now.” 

“Ever since the raid and the attack, the late Boss always seemed like he was sick or too tired to do anything, and he was finally assassinated about a month ago. Since then, we’d been struggling to find new leadership before we located you again.” 

“Do you know who was behind the assassination?” 

“No, though we expect it was the Lock group directly to our west. They were also threatened by the Ryuchi lately, and we suspect they’re trying to absorb our remaining territory in a bid to remain independent against them.” 

“I see… Have you been able to find out how they did it, at least?” 

“Again, I am ashamed to report that we have not. We do have another suspicion that it might have been an inside job, though we have no way of proving this either way because we were so short-staffed at the time- and still are.” 

“That’s unfortunate. Do you think, if it was someone on the inside, they would try again now that I’m here?” 

“We have no idea. It could have been a one-time revenge, for all we know, or it could have been an attempt to destabilize us. If that’s the case, I would guess that they might try again, but not for a while.” 

“I agree. We’re on too much of a high alert now, and any inside man would know it. They’d wait for us to get complacent before they struck again- if they’re going to strike again. Again, all this is speculation and we have to proof to back any of it up, but it’s the most likely scenario.” 

“Well, thank you for telling me, men- and Miru. I didn’t mean any offense by that comment.” 

“None taken, Boss.” 

“Excellent. Well, I have one final question I wish to ask about this matter before we move on to other topics. Exactly how did my predecessor die?” 

A moment of silence followed Kisame’s question which each of the three people he had addressed seemed unwilling to break, before a quick “Gunshot to the head,” was uttered into the stillness and silence, thick and unbreakable, fell once again. Itachi remained motionless off to the side as he had been sitting for the past half an hour, listening to them talk business and catch Kisame up on everything that had happened since he’d left all those years ago. Apparently, the trio had been doing the work of keeping the gang afloat since Kisame’s father had died, and even before, when he had deteriorated so much that he couldn’t do it himself. Their names, as they’d introduced themselves as in the beginning of the conversation, were Fuguki, Raiga, and Miru, one of the only women in the gang. Throughout the conversation, Itachi had gleaned much useful information from their words, but even more through their tones. He knew that no one was paying any attention to him, especially after Kisame had introduced him and explained that he was blind, and the careless underestimation was allowing him to observe their dynamics while at the same time being almost completely ignored. Someday, Itachi speculated, he could perhaps use that fact to scare some respect into them, but not now. Right now, the information he was gleaning vastly overshadowed any personal slight he might receive. 

For example, though he hadn’t been able to see which person had been speaking, Itachi had matched names to voices and had been able to track who said what during the conversation, and had gathered some interesting observations about the three members of the gang hierarchy. Miru, the single woman, spoke in a remarkably business-like manner, never an ounce of superfluous words or uncritical thought, which likely meant that she had cultivated such mannerisms in the hopes of reducing the amount she was looked down on as a woman in a male-dominated environment. In juxtaposition to her, the man known as Raiga was talkative, but colloquial almost to the point of rudeness in his manner and speech. The third member of the trio, Fuguki, had remained silent whenever possible throughout the answering of Kisame’s questions, but by his tone of quiet authority whenever he did speak, mixed with the slightest hint of irritation, Itachi could tell that he was the one who had really been in charge while the gang had remained leaderless, and he was reluctant to give up that power. His clever deflections away from himself hid the fact fairly well, but having lost his sight had made Itachi’s ears better at picking up minutest details like that in voices without the crutch of relying on facial expressions. 

Finally, Fuguki’s smooth voice broke through the silence, speaking for the first time in almost ten minutes. “If I may, Kisame, I’d like to enquire as to your… behavior. Our late Boss was your father, correct? Why are you treating his death with such… callus pragmatism? Do you feel nothing for him?” 

Itachi didn’t have to be able to see Kisame’s face to know it would be covered in a mask of indifference to hide his internal fury. As the silence again stretched on to an almost painful length of time, he almost stood up to draw the attention to himself and away from Kisame, but he heard the rustling of cloth as Kisame folded his arms over his chest and stopped himself just in time to hear how Kisame was going to respond. 

“That man gave up any rights to call himself a father years ago. I am taking charge of the group of people who once followed him to protect them and myself, nothing more. So, if you please, I would like to not discuss any further the matters of the dead and instead turn to those still among the living.” 

Now Itachi did stand up, pushing his chair back across the floor with a screech and breaking through the awkward silence that was threatening to swallow up the room. The motion drew everyone’s attention to himself, and he could almost feel the trio’s surprise as they realized they had forgotten he was in the room. This was one of the signals he and Kisame had worked out that morning before going to meet with the men - and women - who had greeted them the night before: he would remain inconspicuous and silent during the meeting, but if the conversation started veering into dangerous territory, he would interrupt with a casual request, therefore disrupting an unfavorable atmosphere in hopes of altering it more to their favor. Itachi could feel Kisame’s understanding directed at him before he even spoke, so he allowed himself to relax and play his part. 

“I’d like to walk around for a while. Would you mind pointing out some landmarks for me?” 

“Sure thing.” Kisame stood up as well and walk to Itachi, taking hold of his arm and pointing at different places around the room. “There’s nothing much in here besides the table, which stretches almost the length of the room. It’s a long room, but narrow, so the walls stretching this direction are much longer than the ones this direction. There are two open doors there and there, another closed door there, and a potted plant in every corner. You think you got it?” 

Nodding, Itachi shook off Kisame’s hand and took a step forward. “Yes, thank you. I apologize for the interruption. Please don’t mind me and continue with your meeting.” 

As he strode off toward the closest wall, Itachi could almost feel the weight of three suspicious gazes on his back, but he paid them no mind and instead reached a hand forward until his fingertips brushed against the barrier he was seeking. Eventually, Miru broke the silence again, bring the conversation back to finances, and in particular, medical bills. It seemed that recently a few of their boys had been jumped by some Locks during a job, and they’d managed to send them packing but one young man, a newer recruit named Juzo, had been injured and was now in the hospital. They had plenty of money to pay for his treatment, but after that money was gone they’d be running low on funds that could be used at places like the hospital; mainly, that the majority of funds they had left was unlaundered drug money and their primary source of money laundering had recently been busted by the police, so they needed to find a new source of money laundering, and quickly. Itachi tuned out the rest of that particular conversation as he had no experience in these things and had been incarcerated for so long that he wouldn’t be able to recognize any of the groups or people they were suggesting anyway, instead focusing on making his way around the room and memorizing the length of the walls and the sides of the table. 

His ears only perked up again when Fuguki interrupted Kisame once more, breaking into a long debate between him and Miru that he had been abstaining from for the last several minutes. 

“So, Kisame, what changes in leadership do you plan on implementing around here?” 

Itachi paused against the far wall, his hand finding the top of the potted plant Kisame had told him lived in this corner of the room. Its leaves, he noticed, were considerably drier than the leaves on the other three plants. 

“What do you mean, changes? Did you expect me to make ridiculous demands and ignore the good you’ve already worked here?” Kisame’s voice rose angrily, causing Itachi’s head to jerk up silently. “Did you think I would do away with all of you for fear of your skills? What kind of person do you take me for? I am not that heartless!” 

Itachi quickly withdrew his hand from the plant and started across the room as quickly as he dared without attracting notice to himself, cursing his sightless vision and the fact that he was on the opposite end of the room from Kisame, unable to reach him before Fuguki spoke again. 

“Your father was.” 

Itachi knew that comment would cause Kisame to detonate, and it had been carefully selected as such, so just before he exploded, he reached out and laid a hand on the shoulder of the man who had just spoken. 

“I thought we agreed to leave the dead alone, Fuguki?” 

Fuguki and the others jumped at Itachi’s seemingly sudden appearance, letting out small cries that alerted him to their shock. Fighting to keep an amused smirk from curling up his lips, Itachi gripped Fuguki’s shoulder tighter when the other man tried to pull away from him. 

“Wh- where the hell did you come from?” 

Now Itachi did allow himself to smile, but only slightly. “Why, I’ve been here the whole time; I never left. You really should be more observant of your surroundings, eh, Fuguki? What if I’d been an assassin come to do away with your new Boss?” He raised the hand not gripping Fuguki’s shoulder and cocked his fingers into a gun shape, then aimed it where he knew Kisame to be. “Bang. He’s dead. I may be blind, but I’m not deaf, and you four were making enough noise to wake the dead, let alone give away your position to the living.” 

“Itachi…” Kisame warned quietly, his confused tone making it clear that he didn’t understand Itachi’s actions. 

“Yeah!” Raiga stood up angrily, his chair scraping back across the floor with an ear-splitting screech. “Don’t threaten our Boss! I don’t care who you are or what your relationship to him might be, I ain’t gonna let you get away with it!” 

Itachi inwardly grimaced at the young man’s choice of vulgar vocabulary, but decided not to comment on it. “Relax: I’m not here to threaten or assassinate your new Boss; I was just making a point. No, I just wanted to give my opinion, that’s all.” 

“Give your opinion!” Raiga sneered, marching up to Itachi and grabbing his collar, his fetid breath blowing rancidly against his nose, causing it to take everything Itachi had not to turn up his nose or gag. “What do you think gives you the right to speak?” 

“Let go of him, Raiga,” Kisame interjected tiredly. “Let him speak.” 

“Wha-!?” Raiga dropped Itachi in shock and rounded on Kisame. “But why, Boss?” 

His voice turning sharp, Kisame snapped, “Do you remember my conditions for coming back with you? If I went, he was coming too, and that goes for this as well. Let him speak.” 

Raiga was clearly unhappy with the order, but he backed down and sat back in his chair, pulling it back to the table so the legs squeaked on the floor again. Trying not to look too smug at his pre-assured triumph, Itachi squares his shoulders - his hand tightening on Fuguki’s shoulder, having never left it - and prepares to speak. 

“I think Fuguki’s right.” 

“What!?” Fuguki roared, jerking away from Itachi’s grip. 

Itachi angled his head downwards so his gaze would have rested on Fuguki’s face if he’d still possessed his eyes, hearing the other man shiver violently at the eerie sensation. “Did you not expect me to take your side?” 

“No, that’s not… I didn’t… what?” 

Letting out a sigh, Itachi turned back to where he knew Kisame was standing, letting him look at his face and hoping that he would read between the lines of what he was saying and not let his anger blind him. “Of course, I don’t agree with everything he’s insinuating-”

“Insinuating!” Fuguki interjected angrily, but Itachi completely ignored him. 

“-but I have to agree that he has a point. The previous Boss was assassinated because he was viewed as weak, because you all were viewed as weak. You said he was often ill and stayed in bed most of the time before he was killed, if I remember correctly? Kisame can’t act like that if you want a level of safety that your late former Boss couldn’t provide.” 

“How dare you speak about him that way!” Miru cried out angrily, slamming her hands against the table. “He was a great man-” 

“The operative word being ‘was’,” Itachi cut in, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t doubt that in his prime, he was one of the most feared men in these parts. However, the fact remains that he is now dead, and unless all four of you - and everyone else in your group - wants to go the same way, I suggest you change  _ something _ . It doesn’t matter what, but the name and face of a Boss isn’t enough. It has to be something that catches the attention of your rivals, that strikes fear into their hearts, that screams- you know, I just realized I don’t actually know your name yet. What are you called?” 

From his chair, Raiga snorted. “Typical. You have our colors, but you don’t even know our name.” 

Miru’s response was slightly more respectful, though she was clearly irritated with Itachi. “We’re the Sword Ninjas- though,” she broke off suddenly, her tone softening in curious remembrance, “if I remember correctly, that was the name our former Boss gave us when he took over because he decided that the name the gang had before wasn’t menacing enough.” 

“What was that name?” Kisame asked eagerly, his chair squeaking as he leaned forward. Itachi carefully hid a pleased smile; it appeared that his approach had paid off. 

“If I remember it correctly, it was ‘Mist’,” Fuguki said stiffly. “The gang was known as ‘Mist’. They were known for their subtlety and insubstantiality, fading into the darkness as easily as the mist rising from the ocean.” 

“I see why he changed the name,” Kisame commented with a terse laugh. “That would never have fit with his ideals or the image he wanted. He was too much into violence and bloodshed.” 

“And what kind of image do you want, Kisame?” Itachi asked quietly. He could hear gasps from the other three, probably marveling - or criticizing - his daring, but he kept his attention focused solely on Kisame. 

“...I’d have to say,” he said after a moment of deliberation, “if I had to chose, I’d prefer the subtlety over violence, but I won’t make that arbitrary decision by myself. I was very young during the first name change, but I remember there being a lot of pushback and anger toward it, and there was a huge confrontation that had to be settled. I won’t force people to do something like that if it’s not what they want.” 

“But you would like it change it back, given the choice? The image… and the name?” 

“If given the choice… yes, I think a new name would be the perfect way to get the fresh look that we need.” 

“I would have to say that I agree.” Itachi gave a single curt nod. “Get everyone together and put it to a vote. If you lay it out the way you said it tonight, it’s likely they’ll agree with you.” 

“Now, wait a minute!” Raiga shouted, standing up again. “What give you the right to make a decision like that? You’re not one of us!” 

“Not one of you?” Itachi turned slowly to face Raiga, turning a cold sightless gaze on him. To his credit, he didn’t shiver under the chilling stare, but he did take half a step backwards before steeling himself. “I would say that this-” he reached up and touched the bandana wrapped around his empty eyes “-would beg to differ. And you’re right: I have no right to make a decision like that-  _ but neither do you _ . So I suggest you shut up and let the one person in this room with the authority to make that decision speak.” His face snapped to the side, focusing the attention on Kisame, and with a knowing smirk, asked purposefully, “Boss?” 

The three people in the room who had never addressed Kisame as anything but Boss held their respective breaths as they waited for a response. Itachi could feel Kisame’s gaze on him, trying to discern the hidden messages he was sending through code, before he stood up and addressed everyone with finality. 

“Let’s do it. As soon as everyone who drove us gets back from their detours, we’ll gather everyone and ask. I’d like to thank them for their service, anyway.” 

“But, Boss-” Fuguki protested, but Kisame cut him off. 

“I said,” he repeated with more ice in his voice, “We’re going to do it. When is everyone expected to be back?” 

In a small voice, Miru said, “Tomorrow morning. The last pair should come in at ten.” 

“Then we’ll set it for tomorrow evening. Make the arrangements.” Kisame jerked his head to the doorway, the action visible to Itachi through the sound of his jacket rustling against his skin. “Now leave us.” 

“But Boss-” 

“I said  _ leave us _ . Now.” 

Miru stood immediately and scampered from the room, closely followed by Raiga, who went less eagerly but still left. After a few seconds, Fuguki stood up and started to file from the room as well, though it was clear he didn’t want to go and was sour about it. Just before he reached the doorway, however, Itachi called out to him. 

“Oh, Fuguki, I wanted to ask you something.” 

Itachi could almost see the irritation dripping from Fuguki’s expression as he turned around again. “What do you want?” 

Sending the blandest smile his way that he could, Itachi said, “I just wanted to inquire as to who waters the plants in this room?” 

“What?” He snapped waspishly, anger clouding his tone. 

“Just answer the question,” Kisame interjected tiredly, clearly wanting to get the conversation over with as soon as possible. 

“Fine.” Fuguki sniffed irritably. “One of the lackeys takes care of it. I don’t know which one.” 

“But each of them is watered the same amount, yes?” 

“How the hell would I know; I don’t water the damn things!” After this outburst, Fuguki quailed, presumably at a look from Kisame, then muttered, “Probably, yeah. I would assume so.” 

“I see.” Itachi gave a curt nod, then pointed at the far wall. “And what room would be on the other side of that wall?” 

“Why the hell would you need to know that?” Fuguki asked, his voice raising in anger again. 

“Oh, just justifiable curiosity. After all, if I’m going to be living here, I should know my way around, yes?” Itachi widened his bland smile. “Indulge me, please.” 

“Fine!” Fuguki snapped, running an exasperated hand over his scalp with the soft sound of skin rustling over skin. “I think it’s the old Boss’s room.” 

“The one he died in?” 

“Yes, the one he died in, God fuck it!” His tone lowering, he abruptly sneered, “Is that everything, Boss, or does your blind guard-dog have any more questions he needs to ask me?” 

“No, I’m afraid the blind guard-dog is out of questions,” Itachi said witheringly, turning his head to Kisame. “Kisame?” 

“Yes, Fuguki, you can leave,” Kisame echoed, and Fuguki let out an affronted sniff again, while still trying to retain a facade of respect. 

“I’ll take my leave then, Boss. Godspeed to you.” 

After the sound of his footsteps had faded from the room, Kisame sighed and sat down again at the table, laying his head down on his arms. “This is so much harder than I thought it would be,” he moaned into the wood, his words muffled somewhat by the fabric of his sleeves. “I would never have agreed to it if I knew it was going to be like this!” 

An indulgent smile gracing his lips, Itachi moved to lean his back against the table next to where Kisame was sitting, letting the fingers of the hand closest to him run through his hair. “That’s why you have me. I stopped things from escalating, didn’t I?” 

“That you did…” Kisame brought his head up from the table, but didn’t try to dislodge Itachi’s fingers tangled in his hair. “Actually, I had a question about that. I know you said that you would only intervene if you sensed something bad might happen, and I’m glad you spoke up both times when you did, but why did you expose yourself? I thought you were going to use the ruse of being helpless a little longer than forty-five minutes.” 

“I had planned on that, but even the best laid plans must be flexible enough to keep up with sudden changes in environment. Besides, they still underestimate me, so it’s no loss my image can’t recover from, and they are only three of the people you will be having to deal with.” 

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” For a moment, Kisame sounded like he was going to lay his head back down on the table again, then he sighed and stood up, placing both hands palm down on the table and leaning forward as Itachi rested his back against the edge of the table, facing the opposite direction. “So,” he continued in a low voice, “what’s your analysis? Of them?” 

“Hmm…” Itachi turned his face to the side so his mouth was close to Kisame’s ear, speaking in a voice barely loud enough to carry to the man standing directly. “I’d say the most trustworthy one, or at least the most capable one, is Miru. It’s obvious that’s she’s desperately trying to overcome gender stereotypes just to be here, and if you acknowledge her achievements without stating the fact that she’s a woman, I think she would become unconditionally loyal to you.” 

“Okay, pay extra attention to Miru’s achievements but don’t talk to her as a woman; got it.” Kisame nodded, the table creaking under his movement. “And the others?” 

“Well, with Raiga it’s hard to tell, but I think that given enough motivation he wouldn’t betray you, at least. The problem is Fuguki.” Itachi paused to listen around the room one more time before lowering his voice again to make sure they weren’t overheard. “He’s not happy, and I doubt there’s anything you or I can do to change that. He obviously wants us gone; my guess is because he hoped that he could step into the position of Boss until the others decided to contact you. You’ll have to be very careful around him.” 

Kisame sighed and turned around, leaning with his back against the table like Itachi was. “I kinda figured something like that was the case. God, this leadership thing is really more than I bargained for.” 

Leaning into Kisame, Itachi let his head fall against his shoulder. “Which, again, is why you have me.” 

“Mmm…” Kisame allowed the contact in silence for a moment before a question abruptly fell from his mouth again. “Oh, yeah, speaking of Fuguki, why did you ask him those questions? Just trying to throw him off?” 

“No; those weren’t even aimed at him in particular. I just wanted to know.” 

“Why?” 

Biting his lip, Itachi drew away from Kisame so the other man could look at his face. “Kisame, do you remember the day we first met, when I was talking to… Button… and she had a message to pass on to you before she faded, and then I told you about my family’s powers?” 

“Yes,” Kisame answered slowly, a frown audible in his voice. “But I don’t see what that has anything to do with potted plants.” 

“It doesn’t- not on the surface, anyway.” Itachi drew his left hand up his right arm and gripped onto his shirtsleeve for balance. “The potted plant in that corner is drier than the other three, even though they’ve been - assumedly - watered the same. Any not only dry, either- that plant is going to be dead within a weak. Since they all have the same amount of water to consume, it has to be something else that’s affecting that plant, and sure enough, when I touched it earlier, I felt something. It was faint, but it was still something. That’s why I asked what was on the other side of the wall.” 

“What… what are you talking about?” Kisame whispered, clearly understanding where Itachi was going and powerless to stop the flow of information. 

“I’m talking about spectral energy, and the fact that I felt it from the room your father died in.” Itachi took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry, Kisame, but there’s a very real possibility that your father’s angry ghost is still here, seeking revenge for his murder.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

“I see you’re back again.” 

Shikamaru didn’t have to look behind him to know the identity of the person who had spoken. “Is there a problem with that?” 

“No, not really. Unless you’re looking for a problem.” The female Hyuuga ghost sat down next to Shikamaru on the edge of the ring around the top of the space needle, tucking her feet up underneath her. “But judging by your performance yesterday, that’s not what you’re looking for.” 

“You’re right.” Shikamaru turned to the Hyuuga ghost and regarded her with a critical eye, while she kept her gaze forward and out towards the horizon. Behind them, the nonsensical chatter of a hundred people pushing for the best selfie spots floated out from behind the barrier that kept them from falling to the ground. “I’m not here for trouble. I’m here for information.” 

“Information, huh…?” The Hyuuga ghost shook her head, her gaze still fixed on the faraway horizon. “If it’s information you’re after, you’ll have to go someplace else. I won’t tell you what you want to know.” 

“But you haven’t even heard what I wanted to ask you!” Shikamaru protested warmly, but his eyes were coldly calculating. 

“I’ve heard enough to know that what you want to know I can’t tell you.” Finally, the Hyuuga ghost glanced sideways at Shikamaru, but her face remained in profile. “You’ve wasted your time coming back here, shadow boy. Leave me be.” 

Shikamaru’s eyes narrowed though his tone remained jovial. “Leave you? But that would be impolite! I’ve only just arrived! And besides, I’m not asking for the dread secrets of your clan, just a few paltry scraps of information- like, say, your name.” 

“Ha!” The ghost stood up, towering over Shikamaru’s seated form, and thrust an angrily trembling finger down towards him. “Paltry, as you call it, or no, I keep my name secret for the sake of my own safety! I am running out of patience, boy! Go before I send you packing myself!” 

Slowly standing up, Shikamaru shoved his hands inside his pockets and placed himself in a direct line between the Hyuuga ghost and the sun, so he would appear to be nothing but a shadowy silhouette without a face against the backdrop of light. “And here I was under the impression that you already used the last of your patience on me during our last meeting.” He laughed without humor, knowing that the ghost had no way of seeing the expression on his face. “And do you really want to threaten me?” He continued in a lower voice, watching her face as she squinted in the pale light of the sun just barely peeking through the clouds. “After what happened the last time you tried?” 

Her already pale face went even paler at the memory of the altercation that had taken place the day before, but to her credit, the ghostly Hyuuga didn’t back down. “If you’re so desperate for answers, why not go ask your little live Hyuuga friend, huh? I’m sure  _ he _ would be able to answer your questions.” 

“It’s funny that you should mention him… considering that he’s actually the reason why I’m here.” Shikamaru took a deliberate step to the side, allowing illuminating light to creep between him and the ghost he was conversing with and chase away the shadows from his face. “As per your request, I did not tell him about you, but both you and him separately brought up the dangers of the so-called ‘Elders’ of the Hyuuga family- particularly pertaining to ghosts. If I am to put him in danger merely by being beside him, I want to know how best to shield him from that danger as well.” 

“And so you want information,” the ghost Hyuuga sneered at him, her lip curling up in distaste. “To protect your  _ precious little friend _ \- if he even exists. Give it up, brat. I’ll never tell you what you want to know.” 

“If he exists?” Shikamaru’s voice lowered dangerously again as he felt rage start to boil his blood. “ _ If _ he exists? The one man I would follow across the entire country, the one man who beat me at my own game, the one person still alive that I’ve ever found I care about- and you doubt his existence?!” 

“You’ve never told me his name!” the ghost shot back, though she was starting to look nervous. 

“And you’ve never told me yours- is that a reason for me to doubt your existence!?” 

“But I am standing right in front of you!” The ghost cried, throwing her arms open wide. 

Taking a step closer, Shikamaru locked his gaze onto the other ghost’s, and this time he saw her falter and take a step back at what she saw in his eyes. “And I am standing right in front of you. Is that a reason to doubt my word?” 

Her eyes widened slightly in fear before narrowing again as she tried to hide the fear from him, but Shikamaru had already seen it. Instead of calling her out on it, however, he let her think, watching the thoughts run through her head through the windows in her eyes with such clarity, he could have probably guessed them verbatim. 

“Tell me his name,” the Hyuuga ghost ordered, folding her arms over her chest. “Tell me his name, and I’ll answer a question for you- but I reserve the right to refuse to answer it for my own protection.” 

“Deal.” Shikamaru held his hand out for the Hyuuga ghost to shake, but pulled it back at the last second when she reached for it. “ _ If  _ I get to ask a second question if you refuse to answer the first, and a third if you refuse the second, and so on until you answer a question of mine.” 

By the irritated flash in the Hyuuga ghost’s eyes, Shikamaru knew that this had been her plan, but the irritation quickly dispersed and she extended her hand further. “Deal. Name first.” 

“Question first,” Shikamaru countered, watching her face as anger started to cloud her cheeks and force her teeth together. 

“Tell me his name, or I won’t answer your question.” 

“Please- we both know you have absolutely nothing over me that could make me give in to that demand.” Shikamaru flashed her a disarming smile at the same time as his hand turned into a vice grip around hers. “Face it: you need his name. You need to know if there’s someone out there who’s willing to make the same mistakes you made, the mistakes that got you killed, and you need to know if he’s going to pay the same price you paid for your mistakes. So answer my question. You have no leverage to convince me otherwise.” 

The ghostly Hyuuga looked down at the ground hundreds of feet below their floating bodies, breaking eye contact with Shikamaru to hide her sudden vulnerability- which, of course, he saw. “But… how do I know you won’t leave after you get your answer and leave me without mine?” 

“You don’t.” 

Shocked eyes swung up to confront his own, but Shikamaru only smiled at her and gave her hand a firm squeeze. “But I’ve heard it said that a man’s word is as good as his handshake.” 

A weak smile flashed across the ghostly Hyuuga’s face. “I’ve heard that too.” She pulled her hand free from the handshake and turned away from him. “Fine. Ask me your question.” 

“Hm…” Shikamaru took a step backward and put both his hands behind his head, as if he was considering a question he’d already, in truth, decided on. “Who was the person who pushed you?” 

The Hyuuga ghost stiffened in profile. “Pass.” 

“Alright then… what did you do to earn such a death?” 

“...Pass.” 

“Well, aren’t you being difficult… let’s see…” Shikamaru rubbed a falsely thoughtful hand against his jaw. He had guessed that those particular questions would be ignored, but it was often the actions that accompanied words rather than the words themselves that spoke the loudest. “What about… the rules the Hyuuga family has about interacting with ghosts?” 

“Pass.” 

“Pass?” Shikamaru couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. He’d figured that she would have answered that one, if only because she’d hinted at the rule in question when he’d seen her the day before. 

“Pass,” she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest. Her clothes billowed about her, against the flow of the wind. “And just so you know, I’m not going to answer any questions about Hyuuga rules or traditions. I may have been cast out, but I am still bound by the codes of secrecy I took as a child.” 

Well, damn. Shikamaru had been hoping to get at least something from her that would help him decide what he could do lessen the burden Neji was shouldering by himself, the burden of the rules and expectations laid out before him. Though, he thought suddenly, he had been trying to get information and form his own opinions from that information- why not, instead, get the analysis straight from the source? 

Carefully choosing his words, Shikamaru asked, “If I was trying to prevent any of the things that happened to you from happening to my… friend, what would you advise me to do? And before you say ‘stay away from him’,” he added when she opened her mouth, cutting her reply off preemptively, “that’s not the kind of advice I’m looking for. I know your opinion about that already, but I’m afraid it’s not an option.” 

“Not an option?” The ghostly Hyuuga’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly is your purpose with that boy?” 

“Well, I believe that’s none of your business.” 

Shikamaru’s abrupt answer shocked the ghost, but she got over it quickly, her gaze raking up and down his steadfast stance, from his steady eyes to the arrogant tilt of his hip. “Alright,” she finally conceded, sitting back down on the edge of the platform and patting the metal next to her. “This one I can answer. Come; sit next to me.” 

Hiding his eagerness with deliberately slow footsteps, Shikamaru strode up to the ghost and sat down next to her, following her gaze to the faraway horizon. After several seconds ticked away in silence, he couldn’t contain his impatience any longer and sniffed, “Well?” 

“...Don’t get caught.” 

Shikamaru waited a few seconds, expecting more, before he realized that was all she was going to say. “‘Don’t get caught?’ That’s it? That’s all you have to say? Jesus, I could have come up with that on my own!” He snapped before he could rein in his irritation. 

“I’m serious, shadow brat.” The Hyuuga ghost turned to glare at him for putting so little faith into her advice. “Don’t get caught. Not just don’t get caught together, but don’t get caught period. Never let anyone know you exist, let alone that you’re staying in this city. Seattle is a death trap for ghosts like you. One misstep, and you’ll find yourself snapped up by the Hyuuga watchdogs, and no one likes it in the belly of that beast.” 

“...I see.” Shikamaru stood up. “Very well. I will take your advice to heart. Well, it’s getting late, and I have someplace to be tonight-” 

“Wait!” The Hyuuga ghost jumped up as well, panic in her eyes. “You haven’t told me his name yet! We had a deal!” 

“Don’t worry; I was getting to that. I’m not the kind to go around breaking his promises.” Shoving his hands into his pockets, Shikamaru turned to the sun again, watching its pale presence get swallowed up by the angry rain clouds that were gathering over the city once more. “His name is Neji. He’s young, in his early twenties, so I doubt you’d know him. You died a long time ago, if I’m not mistaken, before he was even born.” 

“Neji…” The Hyuuga ghost narrowed her eyes in thought briefly, then shook her head. “No, I don’t know him. Still… it’s nice to know someone like me still exists… though he is playing a dangerous game. Good luck to both of you, shadow brat, and remember what I said. Don’t get caught.” 

“I don’t plan on it,” Shikamaru answered before gathering a few shadows around his feet. “Thanks for the advice.” 

“Don’t come back. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.” 

A smile of true amusement pulled up the corners of Shikamaru’s mouth. “So are you, Hyuuga ghost.” 

“It’s Namaki.” 

For a moment, Shikamaru didn’t understand the ghost’s words, then his eyes widened. “Nama…ki…?” 

“Namaki Hyuuga. It’s my name.” The Hyuuga ghost - Namaki - turned towards Shikamaru and gave him a small smile. “Not that anyone would still remember it. But still… Now skidaddle, shadow brat.” 

“Shikamaru,” Shikamaru corrected with a light smile. 

“Whatever. Leave me alone, Shikamaru-brat. You’ve made as much excitement around here in the past two days as I’ve seen in the past twenty years, and I don’t think Seattle can handle any more of it. Just try not to upset the balance around here too much, you hear me?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Shikamaru promised, silently commanding the shadows around his feet to start swirling. “Goodbye, Namaki Hyuuga. I hope I never see you again.” 

He was gone, sinking into the shadows that swam about his body, before Namaki could look at him again, leaving her as alone at the top of the Space Needle as if she’d never spoken to him at all. Her wide, confused eyes searched around the bridge for several seconds, taking in everything from the live people chatting and snapping selfies behind the safety railing to the seabirds flying overhead, but found nothing. With a shake of her head, she gave up the search and sat back down on the platform, watching the clouds eat up what remained of the sun as the sky prepared itself to rain. 

“And the same to you, shadow-brat.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Across the city, Neji stared down at the water running down his body and swirling briefly around his feet before disappearing down the drain, his eyes hollow with introspection. He had been playing a dangerous game, the thrill of hiding an illicit relationship from the elders giving him more pleasure than he ever could have anticipated, but the game had disappeared before he’d realized, pulling his feet out from underneath him, and now he didn’t know what to think. He’d known what he was getting into and didn’t regret any of the things that had happened with Shikamaru so far, but there was a limit to what could happen before something more tangible than lust got involved. Being who he was, he knew how badly a relationship like theirs - interdimensional as well as complicated in other ways - could end. 

Perhaps Shikamaru understood this too, and that was why he hadn’t allowed Neji to reciprocate his actions the night before. Neji’s teeth gritted at the thought, his fist tightening automatically. What if he had pushed Neji away because he thought they were getting too close, because he didn’t want to be too attached when the time came for him to… to… 

Neji cut that thought off before it could finish, tipping his head back so the spray from the shower nozzle hit him directly in the face. The harsh flow drove the unpleasant, prickly thoughts to the back of his mind, replacing them with cool logic instead. Shikamaru had followed him across the entire country with no expectations besides a chess set, carefully watched him for a week before making a move, and even changed fundamental aspects of his personality to make Neji more comfortable, and if there was anything Neji had learned about the phantom during their time in Konoha, it was that, while he wasn’t quite as lazy as he tried to convince everyone else he was, he still didn’t like to waste energy and wouldn’t have done everything he had in the past week and a half if he wasn’t invested in it somehow; that’s just how he worked. 

Running his hands through his wet hair, Neji shook off thoughts of Shikamaru entirely. This wasn’t the time or place to deal with those kinds of thoughts; he had to focus on straightening out his aura before his meeting with the elders the next day, or there was a chance Shikamaru would be discovered through his turbid emotions, and if that happened, the game he was playing would quickly turn into a nightmare. No, it would be best to force his mind into a pre-meditative state to clear up the colorful stains on his aura before they grew any bigger- 

“Hello, Neji.” 

Neji suddenly stiffened as a familiar presence exploded from the shadows behind him, sending threads of spectral energy throughout the shower. He could feel heat start to flood his cheeks in scarlet mortification, but was unable to move as Shikamaru coughed delicately behind him. 

“Well, this is awkward. I swear I wasn’t paying attention when I teleported and I didn’t break in on your shower on purpose. Though,” he continued with the hint of a devilish smile in his voice, “now that I’m here, I don’t really want to leave. Nice ass, by the way.” 

The last comment pushed Neji over the edge, and he spun around with flaming cheeks to confront his would-be assaulter, covering the part of his anatomy Shikamaru had just complimented. However, he recognized his mistake when he saw the expression on the phantom’s face and he realized that he’d just given Shikamaru an even more embarrassing view. His mouth falling open but unable to utter a coherent syllable, Neji grabbed the first thing he could find, which turned out to be the shower curtain, and yanked it in between them to hide his body from Shikamaru’s hungry and amused gaze. 

“Wha… y… you… Get the fuck out of my shower!” 

“Now, Neji,” Shikamaru admonished almost gleefully, his eyes gleaming predatorily and his arm wrapping around Neji’s back to pull him closer, his hand wandering further downward than Neji would have liked. “You’ll get the floor wet if you do that. Besides, it’s not as if I haven’t seen you like this before.” 

“You haven’t!” Neji hissed, trying to escape the wandering hand exploring his backside, but in doing so only succeeding in pressing his pelvis against Shikamaru’s, their bodies separated only by the thin material of the shower curtain and the insubstantial fabric of Shikamaru’s clothes. “You’ve seen me shirtless, not naked! This is completely different!” 

“Neji, I gave you a blowjob last night.” 

“I still had my pants on!” Neji jerked away from Shikamaru’s body, only to grind himself back harder on the hand groping him quite cheekily. “I just- don’t like being naked in front of people! That’s all.” 

Suddenly, Shikamaru seized Neji’s chin in a vice grip forcing him to look in his abruptly dark and serious eyes. “This fear isn’t the result of any kind of past trauma, is it?” 

“N-no!” Neji quickly shook his head, dislodging Shikamaru’s hand from his jaw. “No, nothing like that’s ever happened to me. It’s just because of my upbringing, what was proper being drilled into me from a young age.” 

“Good.” Shikamaru’s eyes went dark, like twin pools of shadow where the iris was indistinguishable from the pupil, and Neji found himself sucked into them. “Because if that was the case, I’d have to go find them and end them myself.” 

The words shocked Neji enough that he forgot for a moment the position they were in. “End… end them? Like…  _ kill  _ them?” 

“It’s not the first time I’ve done something like that.” 

Right; Shikamaru was so passive all the time around Neji that he had forgotten for a while that he’d seen active combat, and as such, had likely been on the giving end of many a death blow before he had received his own. The idea of him purposefully ending a life, however, hadn’t stuck with Neji before, though it must have happened. Unable to help himself, Neji shivered at the thought, then quickly turned the conversation away from such dark topics. 

“Well, if we’ve got that settled, would you mind  _ getting the fuck out of my shower now?! _ ” 

“Hmmm…” Shikamaru’s eyes lightened so his pupil was distinguishable from his iris, but they regained the devilish glint from before. “No, I don’t think I will. I’m not one to waste as perfect an opportunity as this.” 

“Perfect opportunity for wha- ah!” Neji tried to snap but broke off in the middle to moan when Shikamaru grabbed his ass and squeezed, and at the same time pulled him forward so his pelvis made rough contact with Shikamaru’s hip. 

“The perfect opportunity to finish what we were doing this morning before your damned alarm clock interrupted us.” Shikamaru traced his nose across his captive’s forehead, and Neji couldn’t help but shiver as his body remembered the physical promises of that morning and the pleasures of the night before, racing ahead of his mind and demanding more. Well, when he put it that way, the offer seemed a lot more tempting… even in face of his current state of undress. “What say you?” 

Neji closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of Shikamaru’s face so he could think without distractions. He really needed to clear his aura of the tell-tale signs of intimate spiritual interaction before the next day’s appointment with the Hyuuga elders, and that meant staying away from Shikamaru long enough to get his aura back into order… but then again, his aura was already stained; what more damage could one more round do? And Shikamaru was right; he had basically seen him naked already… And who was he kidding; he was already turned on by Shikamaru’s pointed groping… His decision made, Neji let his eyelids flutter open, his grip on the shower curtain slackening. 

“I say… you’re still wearing too much clothes. I feel underdressed.” 

The catlike grin on Shikamaru’s face widened, and he pushed Neji back against the shower wall without preamble, dragging the only barrier between them aside. Neji let himself be forced out from under the spray from the nozzle until the wet skin of his bare back pressed against the chill shower wall, causing a shiver to go up his spine that ended in a gasp through his parted lips that Shikamaru swallowed by pressing his mouth over Neji’s before it made it out into the open air. His hands bunching in the wet hair at the nape of Neji’s neck, the phantom kissed him fiercely, keeping him pinned down with a control Neji didn’t want to admit excited him. Not to be outdone and remembering his earlier complaint about how Shikamaru was wearing too much clothes, Neji reached downwards and ran his hands along the phantom’s stomach, underneath his shirt, finding the fabric still surprisingly dry, even though he was standing directly under the shower spray. 

Realizing what Neji wanted, Shikamaru broke contact and stepped backwards, pulling his shirt over his head and letting it disappear into a wisp of shadow that dissipated among the falling drops of water. Speaking of drops of water, Neji found himself watching, fascinated, as the spray from the showerhead poured all around Shikamaru - and seemingly through him - but left his body completely dry. Enamored by the sight, Neji reached out and ran a hand across Shikamaru’s stomach - this wasn’t his death form, but was obviously from a time after he had joined the military, judging from his toned physique that left Neji feeling jealous - watching the water from his hand collect against the phantom’s skin but the water from the spray above him pass through him completely. Grinning at Neji’s interest and confusion, Shikamaru grabbed Neji’s hand and pressed it to the middle of his chest, showing off the damp handprint it left behind. 

“Bet you’ve never kissed someone who could do  _ that _ before, now have you?” 

“Well, it’s not as if I go around making it a habit to kiss everyone I know,” Neji sniffed, though he couldn’t deny that he was impressed and his hand itched to press against that rough skin once again. 

Something dark that might have been possessiveness flashed through Shikamaru’s eyes, though he leaned in too quickly for Neji to have absolute certainty in his prediction, silencing him with his mouth. “Enough idle chatter. We have better things to do.” 

The phantom’s knee slipped between Neji’s legs, pushing them open and forcing him to balance his weight between the wall he was leaning against and the arms that held him up. Small shivers of discomfort and self-consciousness slid down Neji’s spine when Shikamaru’s hands began to roam over his damp and entirely naked body, but he shoved them down a far as they would go until they all but disappeared. His hand scrabbled against the wall, feeling around blindly, behind him until he found what he was searching for and gave it a quick twist. At once, the flow of water dousing them slowed to a drizzle and then stopped, and Shikamaru pulled back to give Neji a confused glance. 

“What was that for?” 

“I pay for every drop of water that goes down that drain, thank you very much,” he tried to snap, but he suspected the effect was ruined by his breathless voice and cheeks that were flushed from more than the hot water. “I refuse to be wasteful. Don’t you know how bad of a drought California’s in right now? We wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that we - or anyone we represent - don’t care about the environment, now do we?” 

Shikamaru only shook his head, his expression torn between amusement and irritation. “I can’t believe you’re standing in front of me, naked, and lecturing me about water conservation.” 

“Priorities, Shikamaru. We all have them. Mine just so happen to include conserving the resources of our planet for future generations.” 

A dark gleam in his eyes, Shikamaru leaned closer, almost close enough for the tip of his nose to brush against Neji’s. “Then it’s a good thing I’m already dead and don’t give a damn about the planet. I can, with a good conscious, bring this conversation back to the most important topic: the fact that I have your deliciously naked and willing body pressed up against mine, and I can tell that you’re  _ very _ turned on right now.” 

“Delicious? Is that really the adjective you’d use to describe me right now?” Neji glared at Shikamaru at the same time as he wrapped his arms around his neck, drawing him closer and slightly ruining the effect of the angry gaze. “I’m soaking wet, Shikamaru, and I feel like a drowned river rat. How is that in any way seductive?” 

“Well, Neji, I guess I’m just going to have to prove you wrong.” Shikamaru leaned in even closer so his lips rested right next to Neji’s ear, his breath ghosting over Neji’s damp neck and causing an aroused chill to go down his spine. “Water has several  _ delightful _ properties that make situations like this even more…  _ scintillating. _ For example…” Here, he allowed his hand to slide down Neji’s back and regain its former perch on his ass, then, too quick for Neji to counter, he caressed a finger against a sensitive place where he’d never been touched before. “Water reduces friction.” 

Neji barely heard the words Shikamaru had uttered; his whole body stiffened at the alien sensation of Shikamaru’s finger gently probing against the entrance to his ass. His mouth fell open and panting gasps escaped his shuddering body without decorum as the finger shifted, and Neji found himself unconsciously clinging to Shikamaru’s torso. 

“Is that too much?” The phantom whispered in Neji’s ear, causing his eyes to squeeze shut and another heated chill to run down his spine with thickening arousal. 

“Mm-m… ah!” Neji’s fingers dug mercilessly into Shikamaru’s shoulder as he squirmed, caught between the finger probing his ass and the pressure of the phantom’s torso against his pelvis. “Can’t… I ca… can’t…” 

“You can’t what, Neji?” 

“Can’t… I can’t… take it…” 

“Do you want me to stop?” 

A pregnant pause hung in the air for a few seconds before Neji curled his arms tighter around Shikamaru’s neck, his eyes fluttering open to take in the phantom’s heated expression. “...N-no…” 

“Good.” Without warning, Shikamaru pushed Neji back against the shower wall again, shocking him by grabbing his leg and bringing it up to wrap around his waist. “Because I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time.” 

“Mnh!” Neji gasped when he felt his leg being hoisted up to wrap around Shikamaru’s waist, instinctively clinging tighter to him. The position opened him up further, and he gasped again when Shikamaru’s finger pressed harder against his entrance, almost pushing inside of him. “Shika… ma… ru…!” 

“Do you like that?” The phantom whispered coyly in Neji’s ear, then dragged his lips down the side of his captive’s neck so the rumble of his voice collected in the hollow of his neck and sent delicious shivers all over his body. “You’re trembling, Neji.” 

Neji was trembling- in fact, his entire body was shaking like a leaf in a violent storm. The new and somewhat alarming - though not as alarming as it was arousing - sensation of Shikamaru’s finger almost inside him had him completely at the phantom’s mercy, and Neji didn’t know whether or not he should be angry at his traitorous body for how  _ good _ it felt. He whimpered, burying his face against the neck Shikamaru presented him as he rocked his body first forward, squeezing his erection between their naked and wet torsos, then backward, trying to urge the finger currently teasing him to take the plunge and press inside him. 

Shikamaru grinned and teasingly circled the entrance to Neji’s ass, not quite going where Neji wanted him to go. “For someone who was embarrassed to be naked in front of me a minute ago, you’ve done quite the about-face.” 

“Quit teasing me!” Neji snapped, slamming an open fist against Shikamaru’s shoulder. “Hurry up and stick it- ah!” 

His voice escalated from his normal pitch to one several octaves higher as Shikamaru gave his finger just enough pressure to probe beyond the entrance to Neji’s ass and press inside him. He didn’t push it in far, just barely past the first knuckle, but the alien experience of a foreign intrusion in his ass made Neji yelp, clinging onto Shikamaru’s shoulder hard enough that his fingernails dug into his flesh and left half-moon shaped dents in his skin. His legs shaking, Neji suddenly found himself very glad that Shikamaru was supporting the majority of his weight, or he might have found himself on the floor of his shower instead of pressed against its wall. 

“Is this what you wanted?” Shikamaru asked in a headily rough voice, moving his finger just the tiniest bit inside Neji and dragging a wanton moan from his unwilling throat. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

“It’s a y-yes!” Neji gasped when Shikamaru’s finger delved a little deeper inside him, moving as if searching for something. “D-definetly y-yes!” 

“I see,” Shikamaru murmured in a crafty voice. “Well, if you like that, let’s see how much you’ll like _ this _ .” 

Neji’s breath caught in anticipation at the promise in Shikamaru’s words, and his body tensed in preparation for what might come next. When several seconds ticked by and no new wave of sensation swept over him besides the feeling of Shikamaru’s finger moving methodically deeper inside him, however, Neji let out a hiss of frustration. 

“Li… like what-t?” 

“Just give me a second to find it,” Shikamaru muttered, his finger still moving exploratorily inside Neji’s ass. 

“H-how will you know when-n you’ve f-found it?” 

“Oh, trust me, Neji,” Shikamaru retorted, and Neji could hear his grin in his voice even if his face was pressed against the ghost’s neck and he couldn’t see his expression. “I’ll know, and you will too.” 

All of a sudden, Shikamaru’s finger brushed up against something inside Neji’s body and he saw stars, literal specks of light dancing on the other side of his shower curtain. His entire body tensed up like the strings on a violin - or a viola - and he let out a cry, his back arching unconsciously and his erection driving into Shikamaru’s stomach. The culmination of the erotic sensations from his starving, heated cock sandwiched between his own damp stomach and Shikamaru’s more insubstantial one and the finger pressing that damnably arousing place inside his ass was bringing him almost to the edge of an orgasm. The muscles in his stomach clenched, his hands spasmed open and closed, his head jerked backwards, hair sticking to his back in wet clumps- it was too much and not enough at the same time. 

“Found it,” Shikamaru murmured darkly against Neji’s throat. 

Found it, indeed. Shikamaru hadn’t been kidding when he said Neji would know; he doubted if he could ever  _ un _ know the sinfully delightful feeling of that finger brushing that spot located shallowly inside of him. His nerves were so overwhelmed with sensation that he couldn’t decide whether he should rock backwards, driving Shikamaru’s finger deeper inside of him, or press forward and stimulate his mostly ignored erection by driving it between their slick stomachs. 

Luckily, Neji didn’t have to chose, because Shikamaru pulled him closer, driving his finger deeper inside of Neji and strangling his erection between their two wet bodies at the same. Slowly, Shikamaru started to pump his finger in and out of Neji’s ass, brushing that erogenous spot on every thrust, and Neji gasped, his entire body tensing, the chords in his neck standing out in sharp relief as his head tilted back. Covering Neji’s open mouth with his own, Shikamaru swallowed all the sounds he made and thrust his finger harder, deliberately pushing against that spot that made the inside of the shower look like the Milky Way swimming in front of Neji’s eyes. 

In a moment of semi-clarity in between finger thrusts and twitches of his neglected cock, Neji realized that he was only feeling, not giving anything back to Shikamaru for the wonderful sensations searing through his body, so he forced his arms to leave their locked position around the phantom’s neck and travel over his body instead. One of his hands trailed down Shikamaru’s chest until it rested over a firm pectoral and the other brushed over the skin of his back, traveling down to the top of the waistband of his pants - which Neji found, in his pleasure-addled state, to be extremely unfair, since he was completely naked. In a subtle but firm rebuke, Shikamaru let go of the leg he had forcibly wrapped around his waist - almost causing Neji to overbalance without the source of support - and grabbed the wrist that had made it to the top of his pants, bringing it back up to wrap around his neck. 

A little hurt by the rebuttal, Neji dug the fingernails of the hand resting on Shikamaru’s chest into his skin, but not hard enough to make him withdraw; the storm of pleasure that was wracking his body was at stake, after all. It was soon driven from his mind, however, when Shikamaru surprised him - likely to distract him from the tipsy anger in his system - by stretching him a little more and adding a second finger in with the first. 

The two fingers worked together, one retreating while the other was pressing forward, sending a constant stream of pleasure coursing through Neji’s body. He knew that he wouldn’t have been able to hold back the sounds trying to rip themselves from his throat if Shikamaru’s mouth didn’t still catch them all instead, his tongue winding around Neji’s own as if trying to map out the inside of his mouth to his tonsils. Unable to stop himself, Neji squeezed his eyes shut, turning away from the lights show dancing around him - was it in his head, or real? - to watch the dark at the back of his eyelids, which, miraculously, somehow served to make the pleasure flooding his body intensify, even though he thought he’d already reached the peak. 

The new peak turned out to be the final one. At a flash of heat in his stomach uncoiling into a familiar tension, Neji tried to push Shikamaru away, to warn him of what was coming, but the phantom didn’t let him, hauling him closer with an iron grip and thrusting his fingers faster, giving Neji no choice but to give in the rushing storm that was quickly overtaking the ship of his self-control, gale-force winds shredding every sail and toppling the mainmast, leaving him dead in the water to await the crash of the mighty tidal wave he could see coming from far off. It pushed through the ocean of his confused, pleasure-addled mind with the force of a tsunami, drawing nearer and nearer until it loomed over him, as tall as a skyscraper, then came rushing down, down, down, the wall of water smashing his self-control ship to pieces until all that remained of it was scattered timber and debris littering the white-capped waves. 

Neji shattered with the shattering of his ship, his entire world going as white as the inside of his shower walls. His whole body spasmed as he came, breaking apart into a thousand tiny pieces and melding into one small lump of smelted metal at the same time, overcome by heat and passion. Shikamaru held him almost tenderly as he rode out the waves of his orgasm, keeping him upright when he threatened to tip over and remaining uncomplaining even when Neji bit down quite hard on the phantom’s lower lip in an effort to stop himself from crying out. Shudders wracked his body as he rode out the last few spasms, then Neji went absolutely limp in Shikamaru’s arms, unable to do anything except pant harshly as all the tension - as well as all the remaining will to stand - drained out of his body. 

“So, how was that?” Shikamaru asked breathlessly, and Neji was slightly mollified to hear that he was panting as well. “Worth the burden of nakedness?” 

It took Neji a few seconds to remember how to speak again. “Definitely… definitely worth it.” 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence in my skills.” Laboriously, Shikamaru slowly drew his fingers out of Neji’s ass, and he winced at the feeling of emptiness the motion left behind. 

Neji let himself be held silently for a few more moments before he forced his arms to relinquish their locked position around Shikamaru and leaned back so he could look the phantom in the face. “What… what did you do to me?” He gasped, feeling aftershocks still run through his body from where Shikamaru’s fingers and the ends of his own hair tickled his skin. “What was that thing?” 

“Hmm…” Shikamaru turned the shower back on and angled Neji under the spray so the flow of water would wash away the evidence of Neji’s orgasm from both of their bodies. “The spot I touched inside of you? That was the place where your prostate lies closest to the walls of-” 

“Alright, I get it!” Neji yelped, pushing Shikamaru away with a blush of scarlet mortification. “You don’t have to go into that much detail!” 

“Let’s just suffice to say that it’s a very erogenous spot for men,” Shikamaru laughed, stepping back and allowing Neji to stand on his own. 

“I’d never heard of it before,” Neji admitted, turning so the water would hit his chest straight on and wash away the last of the white clinging to his skin. As he did so, he felt a pair of strong arms wrap around him from the back and a warm breath fan across his damp neck, and he shivered again. 

“I’m not surprised,” Shikamaru commented, letting the top of his head rub against Neji’s jaw as he leaned into him. “Most people haven’t.” 

“Well, I’m glad you did.” 

“Yes, I’m sure you are.” 

Neji let the water cascade over him for a few more seconds before he sighed and reached forward, twisting the knob that controlled the water flow to shut the water off. “Alright, get off of me. I gotta get out and get dried off before my skin shrivels up like a prune.” 

Scoffing good-heartedly, Shikamaru did as he was bid. “You’re such an old man, Neji.  _ Prunes _ , of all things. Next thing you know, you’ll be complaining about how your dentures are too tight.” 

“You’re older than me,” Neji reminded the phantom as he stepped out of the shower, marveling at the playful way their banter went back and forth. He hadn’t had this kind of conversation since- well, he’d never had it before, unless he counted the good-natured ribbing his friends from the jazz orchestra gave him over his unconventional hairstyle. 

“In years alive or years dead- oh, wait, on both accounts. Shoulda thought that one through before I said it.” 

“You did- just like you thought through the joke on the end. You’re not that slow, Shikamaru, and neither am I.” 

“I can’t put one past you, now can I?” 

“I’m not as easy to fool as you seem to think I am.” 

“We’ll just have to see about that.” 

Shaking his head, Neji grabbed a towel and wiped the excess water off his body before stepping into a bathrobe and grabbing his hair brush. Standing in front of the mirror, he brushed the snarls out of his long hair as Shikamaru leaned against the counter beside him, keeping up the steady stream of quirky conversation that would have been comical if it hadn’t been so heartwarming. Unable to stop the smile spreading across his face, Neji bantered right back, at times being made a fool of and at times making Shikamaru the fool - though the ratio of their wins was highly stacked in Shikamaru’s favor. To anyone else, Neji knew the scene would have looked entirely different: a young man alone in the bathroom, talking to his own reflection, Shikamaru’s presence giving nothing to identify itself, not even the reflection of a curling shadow in the mirror or a drop of water from dark hair that was already dry. Still, though, it meant something to him, and that was all that mattered. 

Now just what it meant to him was the important part he still had to figure out. 

Eventually during their conversation, Neji cast a glance at the ghost leaning on the counter next to him, and stilled when he saw his posture. Shikamaru had his hands shoved deep in his pants pockets and his smile was lazy, but his eyes were sharp, enjoying the moment. He was laughing softly at something Neji had said, his eyes meeting the gaze of Neji’s reflection rather than the eyes in his real face, and he hadn’t bothered to conjure up another shirt yet, so his fully muscled chest was on display, rippling as he held in the laughter. It was a view much like the one he’d been sneaking glances at for the past several minutes, but something was fundamentally different about it at the same time, something Neji couldn’t quite put his finger on. Frowning slightly, he stared harder at the profile of the phantom, trying to figure out why he was suddenly more alluring than he had been a moment before. 

...Alluring? 

In that single moment, Neji’s eyes widened as he understood, the first time he’d ever thought such a thing in his life shocking him to the core: Shikamaru looked sexy. Something about the tilt of Shikamaru’s head, showing off the strong cords of his neck, or the casual slouch of his shoulders, or perhaps the way the waistband of his army pants sat low on his hips, hinting at what lay beneath the fabric, had given him pause, drawing his eye in a way he hadn’t expected: a lustful way. Unable to stop himself, Neji found his eyes trailing along the curves of Shikamaru’s form, following a path he wanted his hands to trace instead. 

_ What is this? _ He thought disjointedly through his heady confusion.  _ Am I… attracted to him? _

The night before and just a few minutes earlier in the shower had marked the two instances where Neji had physically been closest to another person in his whole life, but he hadn’t quite realized what that meant until a few seconds ago. Yes, he’d wanted Shikamaru around and enjoyed their games and the kisses they’d shared, but he’d have been content to leave it at that. And then the night before had happened, and Neji had been transported to a whole new dimension he hadn’t known existed before. No longer was he content with kisses laced with chastity, or even the feeling of Shikamaru’s hands on his body; no, he wanted to touch Shikamaru as well, and he wanted to touch him badly. Last night he’d offered to reciprocate out of a sense of fairness more than anything else, but now all he could think about was trailing his lips down Shikamaru’s smooth chest in the same path the phantom had taken on him, of making him cry out as Neji had cried out in his embrace and knowing that he was the one to make such pleasure course through his partner’s body. 

This, Neji figured, his mouth going dry in anticipation, was probably similar to how Shikamaru had felt earlier in the shower, watching Neji’s body shake under his ministrations and somehow garnering pleasure from it even though he’d had no action himself,so to speak. A wave of dizziness swept over Neji as he lost himself further into a fantasy he hadn’t known was attractive to him until he’d seen it, watching Shikamaru’s smug expression devolve into a pleasure-induced blush - pleasure Neji caused - and his eyes glaze over with lust. His head arched back, his neck christened with a purple mark Neji had left as a symbol of his possession and his mouth opening to let out a soft cry, begging for more- 

“Hey, Earth to Neji? Are you listening to me?” 

Neji was abruptly jerked back from his fantasy to stare into the very real, unclouded-by-lust gaze of the phantom leaning against the counter next to him. Flushing as though he’d been caught doing something naughty, Neji dropped his gaze so he wasn’t looking at the unconsciously scintillating body on display for him to feast his eyes on and cleared his throat in embarrassment. 

“S-sorry, I don’t know what… I was just lost in thought.” 

“I could see that.” Shikamaru leaned towards Neji, but the Hyuuga kept his eyes trained on the mirror so he had no chance of catching the phantom’s gaze. “And what, pray tell, was that thought? You were looking at me in a very interesting way, like I’d either just killed your cat or we were stuck on a deserted island together and I’d just eaten the last of the rations and you were now considering eating  _ me _ instead.” 

“I don’t have a cat,” Neji intoned robotically, keeping his eyes locked with his reflection in the mirror and moving his hands through the motions of brushing his hair almost mechanically. “But you have a very vivid imagination.” 

“Hey, hey, wait a minute. I’m losing you, Neji.” Shikamaru deftly reached up and grabbed Neji’s wrist, forcing him to stop his mechanical motions and drawing his gaze back to the ghost next to him. “I don’t know what I did, but you just closed off without any warning. What’s wrong, Neji? Was it something I said?” 

If only it was that simple. Neji lowered the hair brush to the counter, breaking eye contact with Shikamaru once more. 

“Shikamaru, why won’t you let me touch you?” 

Neji felt rather than saw the ghost next to him stiffen at the question, and he held his breath as he waited for the answer. 

“What makes you say that?” Shikamaru finally asked, avoiding the question with one of his own. 

That pissed Neji off, but not enough for him to turn the conversation into an argument yet. “Last night, and again in the shower. You brushed me off, pushed my hands away. Why?” 

Another silence, even longer than the first, stretched out before Shikamaru finally broke it. 

“I told you last night, Neji: I’m dead, my body doesn’t react like a human’s sometimes-” 

“Bullshit,” Neji interrupted quietly, finally looking up to see that he had shocked Shikamaru speechless, an accomplishment he might have been proud of if he wasn’t so irritated at the phantom. “I call bullshit on that one, Shikamaru. We were pressed very close together in that shower, and you might not have been as far gone as I was, but I could definitely feel something. So why wouldn’t you let me do the same thing for you that you did for me? I was willing to- I wanted to! Why did you push me away?” 

Shikamaru remained speechless for a few more seconds, his mouth hanging open a thread, as if he’d frozen in the middle of his word when Neji had cut him off and hadn’t bothered to thaw, then looked away with a humorless laugh, directing his gaze upward, to the bank of clouds he couldn’t see hidden behind a blank ceiling. 

“You go me on that one, I’ll admit. I thought you hadn’t noticed.” 

“I said I was more difficult to fool that you gave me credit for.” Neji allowed himself a moment of mollified silence before speaking again. “But you still haven’t answered my question.” 

“Because I was afraid, alright!” 

Neji had to blink as he digested that statement, looking at Shikamaru staring angrily at the ceiling as if he could burn a hole in it with just his gaze. “You were… afraid? Of what?” 

“Of disappointing you.” 

“Of disappointing… me? How does that work?” 

Taking in a deep breath, Shikamaru turned to Neji and held a hand up. “Touch my palm.” 

“But why-?” 

“Just do it.” 

Neji stared at Shikamaru’s palm for a moment, then reached his hand forward and rested his own hand against the ghost’s. It was warm and rough, but strangely insubstantial at the same time. 

“Feels almost real, doesn’t it?” Shikamaru asked quietly, something dark and upset hiding in his gaze. “Feels almost like you’re holding the hand of someone still alive, someone you could have a physical relationship with without a second thought.” 

“I don’t understand-” Neji started, but Shikamaru cut him off, pulling his hand away and turning it around so the back of his hand faced Neji instead of the palm. 

“Now touch the back of my hand.” 

Still unsure what Shikamaru was getting at, Neji did as he was bade, but hesitantly. His eyes widened, however, when he reached what should have been the skin at the back of Shikamaru’s hand was what was instead insubstantial mist, allowing his hand to go through Shikamaru’s until it reached what would have been the skin of palm from the backside, which was still solid, though only the thickness of a sheet of paper. 

“Do you see now?” Shikamaru asked quietly, looking down at Neji’s hand resting comfortably inside of his own. “ _ This _ is my specialty, just corporeal enough to appear like I’m solid, but in reality full of holes. Sure, it can be done - just look at Naruto or Kiba! Kiba’s had enough practice with full corporeality to be able to play with a dog, and Naruto has enough stamina to be able to even fully digest food if he wants to. It can be done, but just not by me. I’ve cut so many corners in corporeality, never once imagining that it was a skill I’d ever want to make use of, that I’m way behind other ghosts of my caliber. I just don’t want to start something and disappoint you by being unable to finish it.” 

“I wouldn’t be-” Neji tried to protest, but Shikamaru was already shaking his head. 

“Yes, you would be, though you’d try to hide it. Imagine what would happen if I was half-hard, and then was suddenly unable to go beyond half-hard? Or if you were touching me and then suddenly where you were touching was gone, with nothing but a gaping hole of nothingness left? That’s what I’m afraid will happen. I want to do it, Neji, I really do, but I know my limits. I can do it, but not right now. I need practice first, just a little bit of time, and then we can do whatever you want to do. Just not right now.” 

Neji looked down, unable to meet the haunted emotion in Shikamaru’s gaze. It made sense when it was all laid out like that, so much sense that Neji wondered how he couldn’t come up with it himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, not even sure what he was apologizing for, just feeling that he should be apologizing. It had obviously taken a lot of humility for Shikamaru to give up his pride and admit what he’d just told Neji, so he felt like he owed it to the phantom. 

But Shikamaru shook off the apology, disentangling his incorporeal hand from Neji’s own. “It’s not your fault; actually, if anyone here should be apologizing, it’s me.” He took a step back, surveying the scene. “Well, I feel like I’ve rather killed the mood. Should I leave?” 

“Actually, that might be a good idea,” Neji admitted, though he felt bad when he saw the hurt flash in Shikamaru’s gaze that the phantom tried to hide so he quickly continued. “I just found out that I have to meet with the Elders tomorrow so I have to meditate tonight to make my aura go back to normal, otherwise they might find traces of you and if that happens there’ll be a witch hunt going on all over Seattle.” 

Something clicked behind Shikamaru’s eyes, and he gave a single curt nod of understanding. “Alright. Do you think it might be better for me to leave Seattle entirely for a day or two, then?” 

Neji couldn’t deny that the suggestion shocked him, though once he thought about it, it did make sense. “That might not actually be a bad idea. They might keep a close watch on me for up to twenty-four hours after the meeting depending on if they like how it goes, so it might be safer for both of us to have a little more distance until things blow over. I don’t know what they’ve called me in for - it could be for anything from my job to something they want me to look into to a personal matter - but having traces of your energy detected in my aura would definitely be dangerous for both of us.” 

“I can do that.” Shikamaru nodded to himself, surprising Neji that he was giving in so quickly. “I’ll go down to Oregon for a few days; I knew some people from there that I’ve been meaning to see if they’d died yet anyway. Would the evening of the day after tomorrow be enough time to throw off any potential observers?” 

“Y-yes, it would,” Neji replied, stunned that Shikamaru was agreeing so easily. 

“Then I’ll get going.” He stood up straighter and moved as if to leave, shocking Neji even further. 

“You’re leaving right now?” 

A single lazy eye regarded Neji inscrutably from behind a strange mask in profile. “You did say that you had to meditate to clear your aura.” 

“I- I did say that,” Neji said, feeling rather lame. “You just- took me by surprise by agreeing so easily.” 

“Well, causing you trouble with your family is the last thing I want to do.” Shikamaru leaned back toward Neji with a superior smirk. “Are you afraid that you’ll miss me?” 

“Of course not!” Neji protested, then when he was faced with a knowing smirk, he blushed and looked downwards. “Well, maybe a little.” 

“I’ll have to give you something to remember me by until I come back, then.” 

Before he know what was happening, Neji found his jaw captured in an unbreakable grip, then his lips found themselves occupied by a second pair. The kiss wasn’t like other ones they had shared, full of rolling tongues and need, but instead composed entirely of sweetness and pure emotion. It lasted only a few seconds, but Neji could have sworn that empires had risen and fallen before Shikamaru finally pulled back. 

“See you in a few days, Neji. I’ll count every hour.” 

Neji couldn’t remember when he’d closed his eyes, but when he opened them again Shikamaru was gone, leaving him alone in the bathroom with his thoughts. Glancing at his reflection in the mirror, he saw that his face was stained with red and his hands were trembling. 

_ Fuck, I really need to figure out what I’m doing.  _

  
  



	6. Tangential Disasters

⚞⚟

 

_ Fire.  _

_ Everywhere.  _

_ It flows around the walls and through the doorways, gnashing ephemeral teeth dripping with flaming blood, its appetite for destruction only whetted by the taste it had already gotten. Smoke, thick and black like pitch, spreads through the air, making it all but impossible to breathe except for the few inches above the floor, but ducking down to breathe that barely passable air will leave him open to attack from the flame-beast hunting him, so it wasn’t an option. In the end, he collapses down on his hands and knees and scuttles away from the strongest source of heat as quickly as he could, coughing hard enough to retch as he tries to protect his head from falling embers with minimal success.  _

_ The fire roars all around him, glaring faces forming in the flames to mock him: the face of his father, his mother, his older brother, his mentors, those he had hunted and those who had hunted him- he sees them all, and they all terrify him. Overcome by the smoke and heat, blinded by the brilliant flames and exhausted beyond belief, he eventually curls up in a ball, his back pressed against the cool - relatively - surface of a stone wall and his head falling to the floor, his eyes drifting shut and his lungs giving up on their job of pushing air into his body when all they can find is smoke as thick as hot tar.  _

_ In the distance, he hears the sound of falling timber, of the destruction caused by fire axes and the rushing of high-pressure water, but it’s so insignificant to his oxygen-starved mind that he can’t place the sounds for what they are: a rescue. Firefighters smash their way through the burning wreckage, looking for survivors, but to him their masked faces are as terrifying as the mirages conjured up by the flames, twisted and psychedelic. A man - or a woman, it’s impossible to tell with the gear they wear - picks him up, his limp body lolling almost comically in their oversized, bulky arms. The last thing that flashes through his mind before he passes out is a warning and a promise, though not one he’s sure he’ll be able to keep.  _

I have to warn them. I have to warn them about the fire… I have to tell them the Akatsuki are coming. 

 

⚞⚟

 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Udon asked for what might have been the hundredth time in a quarter as many minutes, reaching into his pocket for a tissue to blow his perpetually-runny nose. 

“Of course this is a good idea!” Konohamaru snapped from where he was perched behind a nearby hedge, staring at Neji’s apartment through a pair of binoculars. “Neji just about ripped me a new one the other day; that kind of behavior isn’t normal! There’s gotta be  _ something  _ going on, and we have to figure out what it is!” 

“I agree,” Moegi said from next to him, holding an umbrella over both their heads to protect them from the light drizzle draining out of the sky and peering through her own set of binoculars.“We simply  _ have _ to find some dirt on Neji. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t?” 

“Um, good ones?” Udon stuck his used tissue back in his pocket and pulled the hood of his rain jacket a little further over his face, wishing he’d had the forethought to bring an umbrella. “Moegi, you’re usually the one who stops all this nonsense when Konohamaru gets out of hand. What’s got you so riled up this time?” 

“Gossip, Udon,” she replied without taking her eyes off of Neji’s apartment window through the binoculars. “A girl has to know what she’s dealing with, and sometimes gossip is the only way to do that.  Life’s great mysteries were put on this earth to be solved, including ‘does Neji Hyuuga is gay?’”

“‘Life’s great mysteries’,” Udon scoffed. “You just want to know if you can safely hit on him. Can I go now?” 

“I resent your accusation, Udon; I would never entertain the notion of flirting with a fellow bandmate. Music is more important than romance.”

“I’m here, too,” Konohamaru interjected, also speaking to Udon without looking away from the lense of his binoculars. “And I’m certainly not trying to decide if I can hit on him or not.” 

“Coulda fooled me,” Undon muttered under his breath. 

Moegi slapped Konohamaru’s arm without looking at him. “And no, you cannot leave. You’re our lookout, remember?” 

“There’s two of you; one of you be the lookout!” 

“Not happening,” both Konohamaru and Moegi chorused as one, neither one of them looking away from their quarry. 

Sulking, Udon turned away from them to look up the street through the annoying drizzle. “I can’t believe I let you drag me out of bed this early for something as stupid as this.”

Suddenly, Moegi’s voice cut through the chilly drizzle, shooting up in pitch with her excitement. “There he is! Ooo, he’s shirtless… huh, I guess even Neji gets comfortable in his own home.” 

“How do you not realize how creepy this is?” Udon asked blandly, though it was mostly to himself since he knew the two people next to him wouldn’t hear him. 

“I see him, I see him! Move over; I want to get a better view!” 

“I’m holding the umbrella- if you want a better view, then you take a turn!” 

“Oh, fine, I’ll take the umbrella.” A brief scuffle ensued as the umbrella changed hands. “Now move over so I can see!” 

Sighing, Udon turned to look at his two friends, wondering not for the first time why he was friends with them in the first place. “You know this is stalking, right? Neji could call the cops on us if he wanted to, and get a restraining order- we could even go to  _ jail _ .” 

“Oh, can it and keep watch for us, Udon,” Moegi snapped without sympathy, her gaze still fixed squarely on Neji’s window through the binoculars. “People rarely get in trouble for these kinds of things in stories unless it’s a plot point, and I highly doubt us spending a few nights in jail would bring much to the table so I’m willing to take that risk. Ooo, Konohamaru, do you see that?! I think there’s something on his neck!” 

“What, like a bug bite?” 

“No, like a  _ hickey- _ or at least a bruise.” 

“WHAT?! Get out of the way; I want to see!” 

“Quit shoving!” 

“I took the umbrella, didn’t I? Now let me see!” 

“S-see what?” 

All three would-be stalkers whirled around at the sound of a new voice from behind them, sweetly quiet and slightly stuttering, to see the figure of Neji’s younger cousin standing behind them in a bright yellow raincoat and pink puddle boots a size too large for her, regarding them with nervous amusement. Moegi and Konohamaru instantly whipped their binoculars behind their backs, though it was clear that she’d already seen them by the quiet giggle she made when she caught the motion. 

“Udon, I thought you were keeping watch!” Konohamaru hissed, definitely loud enough for the girl in front of them to hear. 

“Well, excuse me for trying to talk some common sense into you- now we’ve been caught!” 

“ _ That’s why you were on lookout for us _ !” 

Watching their banter with clear amusement in her eyes, the girl eventually interrupted them again with a quiet stammer. “Y-you’re N-Neji’s friends, r-right?” 

“Yes, we are,” Udon cut in before the other two could respond, hoping to turn the conversation to a safer topic before it turned towards their blatant stalking. “And you’re his cousin, right? Henrietta, was it?” 

“H-Hinata, actually.” The girl gave them a sweet smile, her rubber boots squeaking against the wet pavement as she shifted her position. “And-d you are… Udon, M-Moegi, and Kono- Konohamaru, right?” 

“Yes,” Udon replied, surprised that she had remembered their names and a little embarrassed that he hadn’t been able to say hers correctly. 

“You- you remember my name?” Konohamaru asked, stars shining in his eyes as he looked at Hinata like he had just seen an angel. 

Hinata giggled again, even the sound of her laughter quiet and uncertain. “Of c-course. You all yelled-d at each other s-so much it was im-impossible to f-forget them!” 

“I can see that,” Moegi allowed sheepishly, self consciously scratching the back of her her head with her very conspicuous pair of binoculars. “We do tend to get pretty loud sometimes.”

Hinata nodded and smiled gently at them, but Udon noticed that she gripped her right wrist with her left hand, as if to stop them from shaking. “S-so, what are you d-doing around here?” 

“We’re just out on a nice stroll, aren’t we, guys-?” Udon started to say, swiping Moegi’s binoculars and trying to hide them, but she grabbed them back and held them out for Hinata’s inspection. 

“We’re stalking your cousin. He’s been acting weird lately, and we’re trying to find out why. And also to get some blackmail material we can use on him later. But mostly the first one.” 

Udon was just barely able to stop himself from facepalming, but he held off the gut reaction when he heard Hinata’s next words. 

“Oh, y-you t-too? That's g-good; I thought I w-was the only on-one.”

“Wait, you're not mad?” He asked incredulously, wincing when Konohamaru elbowed him in the ribs, accidentally showering him with drops from the open umbrella in the process. 

“Of course she’s not mad, you dingus: She’s a friggin’  _ angel _ .” 

Moegi snorted gently. “Don’t let Neji hear you say that, or he’ll smash you into the ground.” 

“It’d be totally worth it, though.”

“U-u-um-m-m, ex-excus-se m-m-me...” All three of them looked back up at the girl in front of them when they heard her unmistakable stutter, taking in her impossibly red face. “D-d-did you r-real-ly m-mean wh-what y-you s-said-d?” 

“What, about you being an angel?” Konohamaru shot a silly grin at Hinata, which, if possible, only made her face turn even redder. “’Course I meant it! You’re one of the most adorable - if not the most adorable - thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and sweet, and really cute, and someone please shut me up before I say something stupid. Can I have your number? Oh, God, like that!! Neji is going to straight up murder me!! I wasn’t kidding about that part either.” 

“You shoulda just kept your mouth shut.” Moegi shook her head, looking like she was unsure whether she should be amused or disgusted by Konohamaru’s behavior. 

“THAT’S WHY I TOLD YOU TO SHUT ME UP BEFORE I SAID SOMETHING STUPID!!!” 

“Yeah, but your stupid mouth took over your brain before either one of us had a chance to do anything. You made this bed, now you sleep in it.” 

Konohamaru’s head jackknifed to the other side, staring in terror at his other friend. “UDON?!?!?” 

But Udon only shook his head. “Sorry, I’m with Moegi on this one. I didn’t even want to come in the first place.” 

“I THOUGHT YOU GUYS WERE MY FRIENDS!!”

“Yeah, your friends, not your suicide squad. If you’re going down, we’re not going down with you.” 

“THAT’S NOT HELPING!!” 

Catching sight of Hinata’s completely overwhelmed expression, Udon took pity on her and stepped between her and Konohamaru. “Stop scaring her, you nitwit! Do you want to still have control over your base motor functions when Neji’s done with you?” 

Judging by the panic that descended over Konohamaru’s face, he hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Amid his incoherent, stumbling reply, Moegi grabbed the back of his head and forced him to bow to Hinata. “Apologize to her, you ass! I do not want to get hurt through association with you!” 

“Gah!! I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me! Please accept my apology and don’t sic your cousin on me!” 

For a moment, Hinata looked like she was going to hyperventilate and pass out right there on the sidewalk, then she took a deep, shuddery breath, squared her shoulders, and blurted out a stuttery stream of numbers. 

The three friends all froze at the unexpected sound, looking up at Hinata. Even Konohamaru escaped Moegi’s grasp to stare up at her from his awkward half-crouching, half-leaning over position. “What was that?” 

Hinata, for her part, looked like she wanted to take back whatever it was she had said and crawl back into her oversized rain jacket like a turtle into the protection and privacy of its own shell. “M-m-my n-n-num-mb-ber. Y-you w-want-ted-d it-t-t.” 

“R-really?” Konohamaru’s eyes were shining like she had just presented him with a tiny piece of the sun to chase away the perceptually cloudy sky cover in a gift box, all done up with a sweet pink bow. 

Udon elbowed him in the ribs, hissing, “Dude, that’s creepy. She’s younger than us!” 

“Only by a year!” Konohamaru hissed back without looking away from Hinata. “You guys keep forgetting I’m younger than you are!” 

“Oh, yeah, I forgot you’re still in high school,” Moegi realized. “Hinata, what grade are you going into this September?” 

“Act-tually, b-both N-Nej-ji and I are h-homesch-chooled-d,” Hinata whispered. “W-we get t-tutored-d p-privately by m-members-s of our f-family until-l w-we c-can t-take c-coll-lege classes-s online to b-best p-prepare us-s for our l-lives. I’ll l-likely m-move on t-to that-t ph-phase in s-six or eight-t month-ths.” 

The line sounded stilted at best, and something she had been forced to recite over and over again until it was true at worst. Udon tilted his head to the side, watching her face as she spoke, before deciding it wasn’t something he had any business meddling in. Unfortunately, Konohamaru either didn’t have the same sense of what was his business and what wasn’t - either that or he was still starstruck - and he asked, “Your lives? What does that entail?” 

Hinata blinked once, a small frown on her face. “Our l-lives as H-Hyuuga.” 

“That’s it?” Moegi leaned forward, clearly curious. “Just ‘as Hyuuga’? Don’t you have anything you want to be when you grow up, Hinata? Like a dream job?” 

“A… d-dream j-job-b?” Clearly, she didn’t understand the concept. “I’m going to b-be a Hy-Hyuuga.” 

“Yes, but what does that  _ mean _ ?” Moegi demanded further, taking a step towards Hinata and missing the subtle clues of new panic around her eyes. 

Choosing this moment to step back in, Udon tactfully pushed Moegi back to a more comfortable distance. “Leave the poor girl alone, Moegi. Can’t you see she’s uncomfortable? We’ve probably taken up more than our fair share of your time,” he added, directing this at the blushing girl in front of them. “Sorry to have kept you.” 

“I-it’s f-fine,” she stuttered back, playing with the hem of her raincoat. “I was j-just on my w-way to see N-Neji, so you d-didn’t hold m-me up t-too much.” 

“That’s good, at least.” Moegi gave her a cheery smile, waving with her binoculars. “Now, you keep a lookout from the inside and we’ll take the outside, and together we’ll figure out what’s been bothering him, ’kay?” 

Even tucking her chin down inside her raincoat couldn’t hine the smile creeping onto Hinata’s face. “D-deal. Though I th-think Neji has p-probably n-noticed you by n-now and will cl-close the b-blinds soon.” 

“EH?!” Both Konohamaru and Moegi whipped their head around to look back up at the window they had forgotten they were supposed to be observing. Neji stood silhouetted against the backdrop of his living room with his arms crossed over his chest, looking entirely unamused at the whole scene below him. When his eyes met Hinata’s, he raised his hands and made a few economical but purposeful hand gestures, which Hinata’s hands responded to in kind. After seeing her response, Neji gave a curt nod, then pulled the curtain closed, cutting off their view of the inside of his apartment. 

“Damn!” Moegi tossed her binoculars unceremoniously to the ground, folding her arms across her chest in a huff. “And here I thought we’d finally found something, too!” 

For his part, Konohamaru appeared not to mind that they’d lost their quarry, instead still focusing on the angel in front of him. “What was that? That thing you did? With your hands?” 

“Oh, th-this?” Hinata demonstrated the motion once more, again too quickly for Udon’s eyes to follow. “I was j-just telling N-Neji that-t I would-d be up s-soon.” 

“How? Was that… sign language?” At Hinata’s nod, Konohamaru stared at her with even more admiration shining in his eyes. “You know  _ sign language _ ?” 

Again, Hinata cocked her head to the side in confusion. “You d-don’t?” 

“Of course not! People only learn sign language if they have to!” Moegi leaned forward again, her binoculars on the ground forgotten in her curiosity. “Does one of you have a deaf sibling or something?” 

“N-no; b-both Neji and I are only ch-children. W-we learn sign l-language because it-t makes n-nonverbal-l c-communic-cation easy.” 

“Man.” Konohamaru shook his head in disbelief. “I know Neji said you guy’s family was different, but I never knew you were  _ that _ different. It sounds almost like some weird cult. So you’ve never gone to public school, you’re going to take college courses online, you know  _ sign language _ \- do you even have any friends?” 

“Neji’s my best friend,” she responded instantly without any stuttering, and then her face heated up further, ducking down into her raincoat as far as she could go and blushing so much Udon would not have been surprised if steam started pouring from her ears. “A-nd-d s-since y-you’r-re h-his f-fr-friend-ds I-I th-thought-t th-at m-m-mayb-be y-you m-m-might-t w-wan-nt t-to b-be m-m-my f-f-fr-frien-nd-ds t-t-t-too…” 

_ Awwwwwwwwwwww _ was the only thing that went through Udon’s mind when he looked at the nervous girl in front of them, shifting her feel in those adorably oversized pink puddle boots, and from the looks on both Konohamaru’s and Moegi’s faces, it was the only thing they could think as well. 

“I can see why you like her, Konohamaru,” Udon commented idly, his eyes stuck to Hinata’s nervous form. “She’s completely adorable.” 

“Dude, back off. I just made an idiot of myself in front of her, so I get dibs.” 

“Guys.” Moegi bopped Konohamaru on the top of the head with his own binoculars, having stolen them from his loose grip moments before. “She’s right there. Stop talking about her as if she can’t hear us.” 

Udon snorted disparagingly. “That includes you too, Moegi.” 

“Why do I feel like this has turned into a hopeless comedy trio?” 

“Because it probably has. The only thing we need now is wet paint and a banana peel, and our routine would be complete.” 

“...I can’t tell if that’s funny or depressing.”

“It’s probably a little of both.” 

“U-um…” The trio looked back up at Hinata when she spoke, her face looking a little less like the surface of the sun but still retaining a slight pink tinge. “It was n-nice to r-run into you, b-but I reall-ly do have t-to go see N-Neji now. B-but you can t-t-t-t-te-te-tex-x-” She cut the word off, unable to finish it, as her cheeks heated up again, switching to a word that was less objectionable to her nervous tongue. “-T-talk to m-me later, since I g-gave you m-my numb-ber…” 

That’s right; she had given them her number earlier, albeit while stuttering. Udon shook his head; he couldn’t understand how someone like her could be related to someone like Neji. Apart from their physical appearances - which were remarkably similar, with the same long, dark hair, pale skin and lavender eyes - they couldn’t have been more different, with Hinata’s quiet, stuttering nervousness and Neji’s aloof pride and air of confidence. It must be a miracle, he figured, that allowed them to get along so well. 

Out loud, he said, “’Course we will. We’re friends now, aren’t we?” 

At the word ‘friends’, Hinata jumped, looking like she wasn’t sure if she’d just been shot or given an extraordinary gift, then her face softened into a happy smile that she quickly tried to hide by ducking down into her raincoat. For a moment, she looked like she was going to say something else, perhaps a  _ talk to you later _ , then she clutched her hood tighter around her face and scurried away without another word. The trio, particularly Konohamaru, watched her go with fond expressions, like the kind a mother might give to the back of her child off to her first day of school. 

“She really did give me her number,” Konohamaru mused, his eyes unfocused and dreamy. “Pinch me, someone.” 

Moegi stole the umbrella out of his loose grasp and used it to smack him none-too-gently on the back of the head. The force sent him stumbling, almost falling forward flat on his face, before he popped back up with a glare. 

“ _ Thank  _ you, Moegi. Well, at least I know for certain I wasn’t dreaming.” 

Hinata entered Neji’s apartment, disappearing from view, and Udon turned away as soon as she had gone. “Well, it doesn’t look like we’re going to be getting any more valuable intel today, so can we  _ please _ just call it a day and go do something else?” 

“I guess,” Moegi allowed with a loud sigh. “We’ll just have to hope that Hinata keeps us posted. You still remember her number, right, Konohamaru?” 

“Of course!” Konohamaru puffed out his chest with angry arrogance. “As if I’d forget anything my angel would say! It’s…” His eyes widened as he trailed off, unable to come up with the first digit. “I can’t remember it!” 

Instantly, Moegi yanked him to the ground, and they frantically traced numbers in the dirt together, scribbling out and replacing ones they deemed wrong, trying frantically to remember all seven digits correctly. Watching them, Udon couldn’t help but shake his head in amusement. Of course, he remembered the whole number perfectly, but it was more fun to watch them suffer for a bit. 

He certainly had some crazy friends. 

 

⚞⚟

 

When Hinata made up to Neji’s apartment, she found him still standing at the window, looking out from between the blinds at the trio across the road. 

“What are they doing?” He asked when he heard the door open, trusting it to be Hinata without even looking back. 

Hanging up her raincoat, Hinata replied, “Sp-spying on you. They s-said that y-you’ve b-been acting strang-ge lately.” Inwardly, she winced at at her stutter, which had elevated to a higher rate than normal from her encounter with Neji’s friends. They were nice people, but no matter how nice they were, Hinata still found herself getting nervous around new people. 

The elevated rate of the stutter was not lost on Neji, and he instantly turned back to look at her. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m f-fine,” Hinata said firmly, squaring her shoulders despite how her tongue tripped over the word, refuting her point even as she made it. “I n-need to meet new p-people or I’ll never get over it.” 

“Hm…” Neji’s eyes sharpened, and Hinata could tell that he wasn’t convinced, but he let it slide. “I can’t believe they staked out my apartment. Some people really have no shame. I wonder if I should call the police on them?” He mused suddenly, turning back to the window to peer through the blinds once again. 

“Oh, leave them alone, N-Neji. They’re d-doing it because they care about you.” She sat down in the customary position, sending a gentle smile his way when he turned back to her. “L-let’s get back to work, okay?” 

 

⚞⚟

 

“Are you sure about this?” Kisame asked for what had to be the thousandth time since Itachi had proposed his plan. “I mean, are you sure this is going to work? What if something goes wrong? What if he hurts you? Oh, God, what if-?” 

“Kisame!” Itachi stopped the flow of worried words from Kisame’s mouth with a gentle hand. “We’ve gone over this before. It will work, I promise. All you have to do is trust me.” 

They were standing in the hallway in front of the door to the previous Boss’s room in the dead of night, their voices hushed so as not to wake any of the other members of the gang who slept at the main house. The room had been sealed since his assassination, only opened long enough to dispose of the body and clean the bloodstains from the carpet before it had been shut again, this time permanently. It had been Itachi’s idea for him to check out the room and the ball of restless energy residing there that night after everyone else had gone to sleep, an idea Kisame had readily - if not happily - agreed to. 

Kisame pulled Itachi’s hand from his mouth but didn’t let go of it, instead gripping it tighter. “But can you handle it?” He asked quietly. “What if it brings up bad memories for you? I remember what you told me before. What if it reminds you of…?” He trailed off, obviously not wanting to finish the sentence. 

“I’d like to think I’m stronger now,” Itachi said quietly, shifting his hand in Kisame’s grip so their fingers could lace together. “After all, I have something tangible to protect now. I won’t be so easily overcome.” 

“But still-” 

“Hush.” Itachi pulled his hand free and smiled a reassuring smile at Kisame. “I’ll be fine. I said he wasn’t fully formed yet, didn’t I? Right now, he’s just a ball of angry emotions, barely conscious, if at all. That’s why he needs to be dealt with now, before he grows into a real problem.” 

Kisame sighed, his clothing rustling as he reached for something. “When you say it like that, I have no way to say no.” 

“And that is one of the most useful qualities a leader could possess.” Itachi reached up and blindly patted his cheek. “Take notes, my young padawan.” 

“Oh my God, I just realized that they made like four new Star Wars movies while you were in that hospital and you don’t know anything about them! We should watch them togeth- oh, wait. They’re action movies. Awkward. Sorry.” 

Itachi had to hold in a chuckle. “I’m sure I could figure something out. We’ll look into it after I finish this, alright?” 

“Fine, I guess.” 

It didn’t sound fine, but Itachi was going to take what he could get. Squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath to hide the nervousness he didn’t want Kisame to know he felt, he extended a hand. 

“You brought the goods, right?” 

“ _ The goods _ .” Kisame snorted. “You sound like we’re on a drug run.” 

Itachi couldn’t resist a jab, a sly grin creeping across his face as he felt a bag of something settle in his palm. “That something you have a lot of experience with, eh, Kisame?” 

“Well, I did work for my father for over a decade before I ran away. I straight up admitted that I’ve murdered people in the past; is the fact that I also distributed drugs really going to phase you?” 

“When you put it like that, I guess not. You’re learning.” He grinned cheekily at him. “And we might as well be distributing; I imagine rock salt looks enough like cocaine that we could slip it past a few drugged-up junkies, especially if it’s in the same kind of plastic baggie you always see on those ads against taking drugs.” 

“It is, dammit.” Kisame let out an exasperated sound. “I honestly don’t know whether to be amused or frustrated by that.” 

“Amusement is almost always the best course of action.” Itachi wrapped his grip more securely around the back of rock salt. “And the knife?” 

“Here.” Kisame grabbed Itachi’s free hand and curled his fingers around the hilt of a small knife. “I had a hell of a time finding one, but I got it eventually. Tell me again why you specifically need a silver blade?” 

“Silver’s the only metal that can touch ghosts,” Itachi replied automatically, the rational part of his mind supplying the answer while the rest of him finally started to panic. He’d made this plan in the hours before this moment, but the reality of what he was about to do hadn’t really hit him until the familiar weight of a blade had touched his palm. The sensation brought back tendrils of memory from his past, memories he’d long hoped had been irrevocably buried. Suddenly, it seemed to him that he was standing in front of the abandoned warehouse again, the one he’d entered with a cocky arrogance, never expecting anything to go wrong, and his life had been turned on his head. Itachi knew the vision wasn’t real, that he’d blinded himself years ago and couldn’t see the warehouse even if it was there, but still the image persisted, haunting him with the ghosts of his past - both literal and metaphorical. 

“Itachi?” 

Itachi jumped at the sensation of Kisame’s hand on his arm, jerking him out of his reverie. The vision of the warehouse faded, leaving him once again in a world composed entirely of seamless darkness. He took several deep, shaky breaths, not even trying to hide how nervous he was now. 

“Itachi, you don’t have to do this-” Kisame started, but Itachi straightened his shoulders, dislodging the hand on his arm in the process. 

“Yes; yes, I do.” Itachi’s grip tightened on the knife in his palm. Even though he couldn’t see it, he knew how it would look nestled inside his palm, his fingers curled delicately around the hilt, and how it would look as it sliced through the air. “You’ve done so much for me; the least I can do in return is the only thing I was ever really good at in my old life.” 

“Itachi-” 

“Is the door unlocked?” Itachi interrupted, not letting Kisame finish whatever he was going to say. 

For a second, Itachi thought that Kisame was going to brush his question aside and continue where Itachi had cut him off, but after a long moment of silence he sighed and moved to the door, unlocking it with a click. “It is now.” 

“Thank you.” Itachi moved to the door, laying a hand on the wooden doorframe and tracing downwards until he found the doorknob. “You remember your part of the plan, right? Keep watch, don’t let anyone come in- and that includes you. No matter what you hear,  _ don’t come in _ . Got it?” 

“I got it,” Kisame growled. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” 

“No, you don’t have to like it. But know that this is something you can’t help me with. I usually don’t know the identity of a ghost I have to deal with, but because he’s your father he might become more volatile in your presence. It’s better for everyone if I do this alone.” 

“I know that!” Kisame cried quietly, his hands fisting the material of his pants with the sound of rustling fabric. “My head tells me everything you say is true, that it makes sense, but I still…! I can’t…!” 

“Kisame…” Itachi started to turn back to look at him, but the motion was stopped by Kisame throwing his arms around his torso, pulling him back against his chest in a strong embrace. 

“Just promise me you’ll be safe?” 

After his previous experiences, Itachi knew a promise like that could never be truthfully made in a situation like this one, but he did it anyway. “I’ll be safe. I’ll come back safe, Kisame. I promise.” 

“Good.” Kisame let go of him rather stiffly, as if under strict orders from the logical side of his brain that was barely keeping ahead of his emotions. “It’s getting late. You should hurry before anyone finds us.” 

“This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. I’ll be back before you know it, Kisame.” 

Kisame didn’t respond, so Itachi gripped the doorknob tighter to hide his trembling hands, then slowly turned it. It opened with a creak, and he heard Kisame casting furtive glances down the hallway in case anyone had overheard the sound and decided to check it out. Taking one last deep breath of untainted air, Itachi stepped through the open door and closed it behind his back, submerging himself in the thick aura of a pre-formed draugr for the first time in a decade. 

The air felt thick and cold, as if treacle filled the room instead of oxygen. When Itachi raised the knife up high, in front of his face, he felt the aura lessen somewhat, making the treacle-air easier to breathe, but not by much. 

Working quickly, Itachi took the bag of rock salt and sprinkled a generous line of it across the doorjamb, then skirted the walls by touch and gave them their own garnish of white power. The familiar motions gave his trembling hands a sense of purpose, calming his hyperactive nerves to a manageable level. The heavy air drew away from the barrier as it was formed, making the air at the edges of the room easier to breathe, until he completed the circle and felt the energy roll into a ball of malevolent emotions in the center of the room. 

Even though it was more cohesive now, the spectral energy still hadn’t found its form yet, and Itachi allowed himself to frown as he considered what to do next. As the ghost hadn’t actually manifested yet - which was a rare occurrence this long after death, but not impossible, especially if the deceased had been ill before his or her death, like he had gathered the former Boss to be - there was little he could do to convince it to fade, since it didn’t even have a consciousness to reason with yet. That left him with few options: he could either leave it alone - which he wasn’t willing to do - or he could end it now, killing it for a second time without giving it a chance to fade. 

That option wasn’t optimal either. But in this situation, it was his best course of action. With an ashen taste in his mouth, Itachi dropped the empty plastic bag which had formerly contained rock salt and raised the silver blade instead, pointing it at the ball of energy in the center of the room. It shrank back on itself as the silver drew closer, sending out tendrils of poisonous dark aura to combat the bite of the silver. Itachi gulped at the too-familiar-for-comfort sensation of those dark tendrils brushing up again his mind and forced his shaking body to take another step forward, closer to the point emanating that sick aura. His palms turned sweaty and his hands started to shake worse than before, forcing him to grasp the hilt of the silver blade in both hands lest he drop it. 

The thing in the center of the room solidified and began to throb, beating like a dark heart intent on drawing Itachi in with its malevolent power. His throat went dry at the sensation; this was starting to feel much too familiar for his nerves to take. The solid ball thrummed with a deafeningly silent energy he’d felt only once before, the day he’d lost the best part of himself forever. Again, shards of images he knew he couldn’t actually see flashed across his mind’s eye, showing him fragments of his past in the form of dark boxes shrouded in cobwebs, blinding flashes of sickly green energy and several twisted expressions, some from pain and the most memorable one from a sadistic joy. 

The knife slipped from Itachi’s grasp and clattered against the floor. The sound was like a gunshot in Itachi’s ears, shattering the illusion of silence the dark energy had cast into a thousand tiny fragments that dug painfully at the inside of his skull. Unable to help himself, Itachi slapped his hands over his ears and sank to his knees, overcome by the powerful presence of the ghost, even though it was still unformed. 

Why was it affecting him this much? Even if it was the first ghost he’d dealt with since his incarceration - not counting the instance with Kisame’s younger sister - it shouldn’t affect him this much because it wasn’t- 

Oh. 

But it  _ was. _

The ghost Itachi had unsuspectingly been sent to subdue had been a wraith, a sick bastard who’d been a doctor during his life, carrying out experimental surgeries in underground hospitals will no regard for the lives that ended under his scalpel- all in the name of forwarding science, the greater good. He’d continued his bloody research of the human body even after his own death, but this time with the intent of learning how to bring himself back to life. The haunting miasma that flowed through this room felt uncannily similar to that horrible aura Itachi would never be able to forget because it  _ was _ the same. 

How could he have forgotten that Kisame’s father had been a mob boss in life? That if Kisame had ended lives on his orders, it was plausible that he himself had killed as well? Enough, certainly, to earn him the title of wraith if he didn’t pass on after his death? 

Itachi felt like he was going to be sick. He needed to get out of that room, and fast. Too many memories were crawling up from the depths of his mind where he’d buried them long ago, too many sick sensations sliding over his skin like poisonous ooze. He started to haul himself across the floor of the room toward the door with painful slowness, hating every fiber of wood that separated himself from the fresh air on the other side of the door. 

It felt like a miracle when his fingertips finally drove into the line of salt he’d sprinkled around the perimeter of the room. He wasn’t precisely at the door, but he felt along the wall until he found the edge of the doorjamb and hauled himself up by the doorknob. 

Before he could turn it and escape the warehouse -  _ room, not warehouse, room _ , he had to remind himself - a sudden voice oozed out from the ball of energy behind him, hoarse and gritty and formless, at once black and colorless. 

“My… son…. My son…” 

Itachi froze, every bone in his body telling him to flee but his paralyzing terror easily overpowering every protective instinct he possessed. He felt a tendril of dark energy flow experimentally across the room to taste his aura, and then touch him gently on the back. He had to fight the urge to scream and vomit at the same time at the sensation. 

“You’re not… him…” The disembodied voice continued, with a note of- was that disappointment? “You  _ feel  _ like him… but you’re not my son…. My son…” 

The tendril withdrew, and Itachi didn’t need any more encouragement to flee the room, opening the door, stepping through it, and slamming it shut behind him one smooth movement that took less than a second. In the back of his terrified mind, he recognized that the door swung outwards and as such didn’t disturb the line of salt he’d carefully sprinkled across the doorjamb, and he thanked whoever could be bothered to listen for the small miracle. 

The air outside the room was clean and sweet, and Itachi gulped down mouthfuls of it, as thankful for its stale presence that smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and cheap booze as he had been for that first lungful of fresh air he’d received after escaping the hospital. His knees buckled, and the only thing keeping him from face-planting onto the ground was his death grip on the doorknob- at least until his legs completely gave way and he fell forward, directly into Kisame’s waiting arms. 

“Itachi! What happened?” 

Itachi’s lower lip trembled; words threatened to spill up his throat from his stomach as his gorge rose, but he managed to keep them down. Then he realized that it wasn’t words trying to make it past the barrier in his throat but actual gorge, and he barely managed to push Kisame out of the way before he started dry heaving. He managed to contain the first wave by clapping a hand over his mouth, but the force of the heave drove him to his knees on the floor, and he fell forward on his hands, feeling real vomit start to burn the back of his throat that he now had no way of holding back. 

It exploded up from his stomach in a burning wash of acid, and Itachi was only vaguely aware as Kisame shoved something - he didn’t know what - under his face to contain the vomit. The force of the heaves wracked his body from his head to his toes; just one more thing to add to the list of things he was helpless against. Even after the entire contents of his stomach had made their way out of his body via his mouth, he couldn’t stop dry heaving, not even long enough to breathe. His head swam, his entire body tingling from lack of oxygen so much that he could barely feel the reassuring presence of Kisame’s hand rubbing his back, telling him he was alright and that he needed to breathe or he would pass out. Honestly, unconsciousness seemed like a viable alternative to Itachi instead of the hellish nightmare he was currently facing. 

Slowly, the shuddering spasms stopped, but Itachi couldn’t shake off the trembling in his jello-limbs that took its place. The floor began to seduce him, the feel of the floorboards cool and solid against his palms, and Itachi laid his head down on the wonderfully cold surface, his cheek pressing against the rough grain of the wood. His whole body shook as if trying to shed the dark aura that had enveloped him like a second skin, or perhaps the memories that had surfaced during the encounter. 

Why had he thought this was a good idea, again? 

Vaguely, Itachi became aware of Kisame’s presence, gently rubbing his back with long, smooth strokes. He struggled to push himself up with his quivering, jello-like arms, and Kisame quickly grabbed him under his armpits and hauled him into a sitting position, cradling him against his chest. The warmth of Kisame’s body enveloped him, chasing away the chill darkness that had seeped into his core. Feeling a sense of security slowly steal over him, Itachi curled tighter into Kisame’s chest, tightly fisting the material of his shirt without the intention of letting go. 

Kisame calmly pet Itachi’s long hair, which had become damp with the cold sweat that had enveloped his whole body, smoothing it back from his forehead before leaning down. His nose and mouth pressed into Itachi’s ruffled hair, providing an anchor for Itachi’s emotions to adhere themselves to instead of rampaging chaotically through his body. 

“Can you tell me what happened in there?” He whispered against Itachi’s hair. 

“I… I…” Honestly, Itachi was surprised he could still speak. As it was, his voice was unusually rough. “Sorry, I don’t think… I just… I can’t… can’t relive it again.” 

Kisame’s embrace tightened around him. “Damnit, I knew I should have stopped you from doing it! I knew you were still recovering, and I-” 

“’S'not your fault…” Itachi cut up off, tightening his grip on his shirt. “I made the decision…. You told me not to do it…. But, at least, it was worthwhile.” 

“Worth...while?” The torso Itachi was curled against tensed, and Kisame’s head lifted from his hair. “You mean, you did it? You made him… leave?” 

“Not… quite…” Itachi shifted, lifting his face so Kisame could get a better look at it. “He’s still too unformed to convince peacefully, and I… I wasn’t strong enough to deal with him another way. I did manage to put a barrier around the edges of the room, however, so the rest of the house should be safe from his effects for the time being- at least until I can recover enough to figure out what to do next.” 

The hand on his shoulder gripped harder, almost tight enough to hurt, but Itachi didn’t mind. “Recover? Did  _ he  _ do this to you? That bastard- I’ll never forgive him!” 

“No!” Itachi corrected, struggling into a more vertical position before coughing and sinking back into Kisame’s chest. “No, he didn’t do anything to me. This is just… bad memories, is all.” 

“Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go-” 

Itachi reached up and placed a soft hand over his mouth, cutting off the waterfall of words. “Don’t. It was… my choice. And it needed to be done. You don’t know what can happen if situations like these aren’t dealt with right away.  You haven’t seen what can happen when… well, it was my choice. To protect you and everyone else here.” His mouth twisted up in a wry smile. “I guess I really am my father’s son after all. That was always his creed, you know. The protection of the ignorant masses. No matter how far I run from the Uchiha name, I guess I’ll never really escape it.” 

Kisame pulled Itachi’s hand away from his mouth, squeezing it tightly. “Itachi-” 

“It’s all right, Kisame. That particular battle is one you can’t fight for me. It’s all internal.” 

Kisame made as if to respond, but suddenly a familiar sound coming from down the hall caused Itachi to tense, covering Kisame’s mouth again to stop him from speaking. “There’s someone there,” he hissed, just loud enough for the sounds to reach Kisame’s ears but low enough that whoever was skulking around the bend in the hallway wouldn’t be able to hear him. 

Tensing again, Kisame carefully let go of Itachi, depositing him on the floor in a kneeling position and stealing that wonderful warmth away from him -  _ no, he was not disappointed! _ \- as he faced down the length of the hallway Itachi couldn’t see. 

“Where?” He murmured under his breath, just loud enough for Itachi’s sensitive hearing to pick up. 

“That way.” Itachi gently inclined his head in the direction the sound had come from. “Between ten and fifteen feet. I can hear breathing.” 

“Wait here.” 

Without waiting for Itachi’s response, Kisame start off deliberately down the hallway, his steady footsteps unnaturally loud against the floorboards. The sound of breathing abruptly increased in tempo, then froze, as if the person hiding had clapped a hand over their mouth to stop the sound from escaping. A frown played at the corners of Itachi’s mouth; why did their breathing pattern sound so familiar? And was it slightly… feminine? 

Kisame’s loud footfalls echoes past the breather’s hiding place, and Itachi heard them give a barely audible sigh as they thought the danger had passed, only for the sound to allow an alert Kisame to pinpoint their location and drag them from out into the open with a shocked cry that again struck Itachi’s ears with a familiarity he couldn’t quite place. 

“Got you, you little sneak! Now there’s nowhere for you to-” 

“Stop!” Itachi suddenly cried as the identity of the person now in Kisame’s grasp hit him. He struggled to get up from his kneeling position, only to have his jelly-like legs refuse to hold his weight and send him back down to the floor. “Stop it, Kisame! Don’t hurt her! It’s Miru!” 

“Miru?!” Kisame instantly dropped his prisoner to the ground, allowing her to splutter as she recovered from his demonically strong grip. “What the hell are you doing here? And why are you wearing that stupid hood? I thought you were the assassin coming back for another shot…” He suddenly trailed off, then his voice grew colder than a frozen lake of salt water. “You aren’t the assassin, are you?” 

“N-no!” Miru quickly sputtered in a panic, scrabbling backwards until her back hit the wall with a quiet thump. “I’m not a rat, I swear! I just heard voices and came to investigate! I thought it was strange because no one’s ever around here this time of night, and that made me suspicious so I decided to hide and listen instead of coming out and risk being attacked. That’s the truth, I swear!” 

“And how long were you there?” 

“I don’t know, a couple of minutes? I didn’t hear much of your conversation, just the last couple of minutes, after…” She trailed off uncomfortably. 

“Yes?” Kisame ground out through gritted teeth, and Itachi could almost hear Miru flinch away from his voice. 

“After your… friend was done being sick,” she finally managed, spitting out the words like they were poison. 

“And you knew it was us?”  

“Of course I knew it was you; I’m not fucking stupid!” 

“Then why didn’t you leave after you realized it was us and not some interlopers? Why did you stay to watch us?” 

“Kisame…” Itachi tried to warn, but Kisame’s anger got the better of him and he punched the wall directly over Miru’s head, causing her to yelp in surprise and fear. 

“Why were you spying on us?! Where is your respect for privacy? Do you have sense of decency?!” 

“Kisame!” 

This time, the word echoed like the crack of a whip down the hallway, causing both Kisame and his prey to freeze. His limbs still shook like unformed jello, but this time Itachi managed to make it to his feet with the help of the wall next to him, and when he was fully upright he sent what would have been a glare if he’d had eyes at the pair. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Kisame? Are you trying to make enemies of your most tentative allies this early? You already have too many problems to deal with without adding this into the mix! Back away from her this instant and apologize!” 

Itachi felt the weight of two shocked gazes on his shoulders amid the silence that followed his outburst, almost causing his knees to buckle and send him back down to the floor, but he only gritted his teeth and held on to his verticality all the more. 

“I said now, Kisame!” 

Whether it was due to surprise at the bite in his tone or actual obedience, Itachi didn’t know, but within a few seconds he heard Kisame shuffle backwards, away from the woman still sitting in the floor, too shocked to move by Itachi’s outburst. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “That was uncalled for. You were just doing what you thought was right.” 

“But if it’s all the same,” Itachi added, taking a few shaky steps toward the pair, “I think we’d both like to hear the answer to his question, Miru. It was asked in the wrong way, but it is important to know why the people around you do the things they do, especially for someone in Kisame’s position.” 

After a few more seconds of stunned silence, Miru drew in on herself and snapped, “Because I don’t trust you, obviously! Either of you!” 

“You don’t trust us?” Kisame echoed in surprise, and Miru gritted her teeth in obvious, audible anger. 

“Of course I don’t trust you! You abandoned this group years ago, Kisame- do you think we don’t remember that? I may have been young at the time - younger than you were, at least - but I remember it as clear as the day it happened, as do the others! You abandoned us, Kisame, abandoned the people here without a backward glance!” 

“My father-” Kisame started with a growl, but Miru cut him off again. 

“Was convinced that you were coming back! He always said you just needed a little more time, that you would come back to us when you were ready! He believed it so hard, he never took your name off his will as the heir to the gang, even on his deathbed! You don’t know how long we argued after he died, deciding whether we should follow his wishes or say the hell with you and get a Boss who would actually care about us!” 

Itachi pulled a harsh breath in through his nose; he’d suspected something like this might occur eventually, but not this soon and with one of the more volatile members, like Raiga, not the seemingly level-headed Miru. It just went to show how truly upset she was. 

“And when we finally find you, look what we got!” She continued, her voice rising in volume and pitch as her anger also started to boil over. “A ‘condition’ to your return! The most useless, pathetic lump of flesh to ever enter this house, a place held sacred by our group! This is our base, our  _ home _ , and the two of you are living in it, wearing our colors, acting like you belong when all you are is a pair of outsiders who fell our way through dumb luck and blind privilege!” 

The words echoed in the stillness of the hallway after she finished speaking, her chest heaving with the exertion of emotion. Forcing his shaky legs to move, Itachi walked several steps forward to stand next to Kisame. 

“Thank you for sharing your opinion,” he said blandly, inclining his head downwards when Kisame appeared to be too frozen to speak. “I appreciate that you told us your true feelings on this matter.” 

“And that’s another thing!” Miru exploded again, this time at Itachi. “Where do you come off saying things like that? What gives you the right to speak for him? And where do you come from, anyway? We broke you out of a goddamn hospital for Kisame! You have nothing, no status, no skills- hell, you’re crippled! Disabled! Completely useless! How would you be a benefit to us? What was Kisame thinking when he brought you here? How can we trust a person so self-centered, they don’t even realize when they’re holding everyone around them back?” 

Instantly, Kisame broke from his frozen shock and jumped to Itachi’s defense. “You can’t-!” He started, but Itachi cut him off with a raised hand. 

“‘Holding everyone around them back’?” He repeated, letting the words roll around his mouth before spitting them out as if they were poisoned blades. “Is that how you view me? Rendered utterly useless by the loss of my sight? Is that all I am?” 

“How can you be any more?” 

“How can I not!?” Itachi sank down on his hanches, bringing his face down to the same level as Miru’s. “Perhaps you’re right not to trust me. After all, I don’t give two shits about your second-rate gang here in the slums.” Miru gave a noise of outrage at this, but Itachi ignored it and talked over her brief protest. “I owe you no allegiance, and you’ve certainly already made it clear that you don’t want me. The only reason I’m here is because of the only man I will  _ ever _ pledge myself to - body, mind and soul - and that man is Kisame.” 

Itachi felt Kisame stiffen behind him, and couldn’t help the small smile that lifted up the corners of his mouth. “I’m here because he wants to be here,” he continued, feeling Kisame touch him gently on the head. “And I will support him in every way I can, because he has command of my respect and loyalty. So you’re right not to trust me; I’d just as soon raze this place to the ground as help you, depending on what he asks of me. But if I were you, I would put my trust in Kisame.” 

“And why is that?” Miru spit back, but her words were starting to lack less bite. 

“Because of me,” Itachi said simply. 

“Because of you? What the fuck kind of reason is that?” 

Leaning back on his haunches, Itachi bowed his head. “Because of the place I came from. You didn’t break me out of a hospital; you broke me out of a psychiatric ward on the top floor of a hospital where I’d existed in a living hell for the past decade. A place of constant monitoring: twenty-four hour surveillance, whether from a real human or a camera; a heart rate monitor that alerted someone to sedate me if my heart rate got too high- and by ‘too high’, I mean anything above my resting heart rate of  _ sleeping _ . I spent over four years of my life in a partial coma on a cocktail of drugs that left my body ravaged and my mind too catatonic to care. And even when I recovered enough that I didn’t need them, that I  _ should _ have gone home to recover in better environment, I couldn’t because my  _ father _ , unable to bare the shame of having a son like me, faked my death the moment I was admitted to the hospital. So, I was forced to remain in a padded prison cell for years, knowing an unassisted escape was impossible because I’d helped write the goddamned rulebook for ward security and praying that someone would slip up and bring me something more than a plastic spoon so I could finally end my miserable existence before I had to suffer any more humiliation than I already had.” 

Kisame’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “Itachi…” 

“Do you understand now?” Itachi asked, hearing Miru’s breathing catch at the question. “ _ Kisame _ brought me away from there,  _ Kisame  _ saved me from that. And if he has enough compassion to break an undeserving lunatic out of his cage and give him a new life, I’d say he has the fortitude to drag your miserable group out of the mud and give it the run it deserves.” 

Not waiting for Miru to respond, Itachi pushed himself back to his feet, wobbling a little as the motion proved to be too much for his already overworked equilibrium sensors. He staggered, but Kisame caught him before he could fall again. “That was an impressive speech you gave there,” he murmured just loud enough for Itachi to hear, and with a snort the blind man responded in kind. 

“Probably too much, but she was irritating me.” 

Aftering ensuring Itachi was steady on his feet - or at least, that he wasn’t going to faceplant if he let go of him - Kisame squatted down in front of Miru and offered her a hand. “I really am sorry for yelling at you earlier. You took me by surprise, and I- well, I overreacted. Here, let me help you up.” 

Several seconds ticked by in silence as Miru simply stared at the proffered hand, and Itachi thought that perhaps she would shake it off and stand under her own power, then a gentle rustle of cloth told him she had grasped his hand, and they stood together. Kisame took a step back when she had reached her feet, once again resting his hand on the small of Itachi’s back for support, but whether he did it unconsciously or purposefully, Itachi couldn’t tell. The woman in front of them regarded them silently for a moment before shaking her head with a light rustle of hair. 

“Apology accepted.” 

The words were stilted, but heartfelt, from what Itachi could tell. Beside him, he felt the air move as Kisame inclined his head briefly. 

“Thank you.” 

A few more moments of stilted silence enveloped them in ever-heightening tension until Miru broke it again. The words shattered the tense quiet around them, but somehow made the air seem colder at the same time. 

“I should be going. To let you finish your private business in… private.” 

With that, she turned on her heel and began to walk away, but Kisame called out one last time to stop her. 

“Miru?” 

“What?” She almost snapped, turning back with an irritated air. 

After a brief hesitation, Itachi felt Kisame straighten up taller next to him and square his shoulder. “I want to thank you for your honesty tonight. I understand that you and the others have little trust for me, and I respect that. However, I hope in the future that I can change your minds with my actions, and prove to you that I am worthy of your trust.” 

“Don’t expect it to happen quickly.” Miru’s voice was harsh, but then her tone softened. “But we’re all waiting for that day, as well.” 

Then she was gone, her footsteps tapping out a rough tempo against the floorboards as she rounded a bend in the hallway and disappeared. 

As soon as she was out of sight, Kisame sagged almost comically against Itachi, who stumbled under his weight, almost sending both of them back down to the floor again. 

“Kisame! Are you trying to kill me?!” 

“Sorry,” Kisame sighed as he stood up straight again, pulling Itachi back against his chest for support. “That was just… I can’t even describe it. I had no idea they felt that way.” 

“Really?” Itachi asked in surprise. “I thought it was obvious. The only reason I didn’t mention it already was because I thought you already knew.” 

“Thought I already knew-! Of course I didn’t know! Itachi, how did you figure it out?” 

“Subtle inflections of praise when speaking about the old Boss, even the time he spent being useless, and slight hostility when speaking about or to you. Really, it was so thick in their voices I thought you would have seen it on their faces without me needing to mention it.” 

Heaving a sigh, Kisame dragged a hand through his hair in an overly pained genture. “Apparently they’re better at masking their true emotions in their faces than they are at voice acting. I’m glad I’ve got you keeping tabs on the other end for me so we can cover both sides.” His voice suddenly turned a little playful. “So, any other little tidbits you picked up from listening to them talk you haven’t told me yet, whether or not you think I already know?” 

“No, other than the fact that I’m pretty sure Raiga and Miru either used to have a ‘thing’ or are currently in the middle of said ‘thing’, but I’m sure even you would have picked that up by how they subconsciously gravitate to each other-” 

“Wait, what? Miru and Raiga? Like,  _ together  _ together have a thing? Where the fuck did you get that from?”

“...I stand corrected.” 

Both let out a gentle laugh at Itachi’s dry comment, and Itachi leaned his head against Kisame’s strong chest. He was so tired that he doubted he could even stand on his own anymore, even if it was required of him. With a sigh, he let his hand slide down Kisame’s shirtfront until it dangled listlessly at his side. 

“This was either a disastrous setback or a miracle,” he said, referring to the altercation with Miru. 

“Which one are you leaning more towards?” 

“Hmm…” Itachi gave it a moment’s thought. “I’d say closer to miracle right now, but that could always change without notice. It looks like you still have your work cut out for you, Kisame.” 

“Well, with you by my side, how can I fail?” 

A secret smile stole across Itachi’s face. “How indeed?” 

 

⚞⚟

 

“This is f-frustrating!” Hinata complained, breaking Neji’s concentration. 

She was meditating for her regular training, while he had taken the opportunity to perform some last-minute meditation of his own to clear his aura before his meeting with the elders. He’d tried to do it the night before, after Shikamaru had left, but the attempt had only met with marginal success. Despite all his efforts, Neji had been unable to focus properly and had barely managed to scrub all traces of the shadowy phantom away before he’d given up and hoped that a night of good rest would do the job instead. It hadn’t, but it had been better than nothing. 

“What’s frustrating?” He asked, opening his eyes to see his cousin’s irritated face. 

“I c-can’t d-do it! Even after you h-helped m-me yesterd-day, I still can’t d-do it-t! I thought I’d be able t-to today, b-but I still c-can’t!” 

A wash of gentle emotion rushed through Neji; Hinata never failed to bring out the best in him. “You’ll get it in time, Hinata. Remember, I helped you yesterday to achieve it once; I didn’t give you some mystical secret that will make it happen instantly. All I did was give you a taste, so you’d know what it was like and try all the harder. I can see that you’ve improved, even since yesterday, but you still need time.” 

“T-time.” Hinata pulled a wry face. “Th-that’s the only answer I g-get from-m anyone n-now.” 

“I’m sorry I can’t give you a different one.” 

“N-no, I understand. The l-logic is solid… it’s just frustrating to hear the same thing over and over.” 

“I can empathize.” Neji allowed his gaze to drift over to the clock on his wall. It was close to nine-fifteen; his meeting with elders was scheduled to start at ten, which meant it really started at nine fifty because they were sadistic old bastards. It was a fifteen minute walk back to the Hyuuga compound - or a twenty minute drive; cities were irritating like that sometimes - so Neji didn’t have much time before he had to end the lesson and head on his way. Not enough time to do something constructive now that both of their concentrations had been broken, at least. 

Oh, well. This would have to do. 

Trying to hide his sigh as he stood, his joints cracking to relieve the pressure of staying so long in the same position, Neji carefully pulled his hair forward over his shoulder and then offered a hand to Hinata. “We might as well be done for today. I don’t think we could do anything of value in the time we have remaining, so we might as well pack up.” 

“And then you c-can make an extra good impression on the elders by b-being extra early,” she grinned up at him, taking the proffered hand and pulling herself to to her feet. 

Neji couldn’t help but answer her smile with one of his own. “I can certainly try.” 

He turned to gather his coat in preparation for their walk through the city suburbs - even if it wasn’t raining, in Seattle one always had to prepared for the advent of the almost ever-present drizzle - his hair sliding over his shoulders in a disorganized mass. Unlike most days, when he gathered it together and bound it close to the end, today Neji had opted to leave it completely down. The reason for his unusual fashion choice was marked on his neck in the form of a purplish bruise, courtesy of one shadowy phantom with a wickedly sharp set of teeth. The color had faded from the day before, but only slightly, and wearing a turtleneck to cover it up today simply wasn’t an option, not with his meeting. However, showing it off at said meeting also wasn’t an option, so he’d been forced to choose the next best thing, besides covering it up with makeup he didn’t have and didn’t know how to use: the highest-collared pressed shirt he owned and loose hair. He hoped that both would be enough to do the job. 

Suddenly, a finger at Neji’s neck shocked him nearly enough to drop his raincoat, brushing his hair aside. 

“Why do you have your hair d-down today, Neji? And what’s this bruise h-here? Some kind of bug b-bite?” 

Apparently, it was not. 

Neji’s first instinct was to clap a hand over the hickey defensively and whirl around with a glare at his assaulter, but he stayed himself just in time. This was Hinata, after all, his little cousin - no, little  _ sister _ \- who jumped at the sound of a clap and had fainted from much less. He couldn’t do that to her; she might be shocked past speechlessness. Gently dislodging Hinata’s fingers, he turned around and gave her a smile that he hoped didn’t look too fake. 

“It’s nothing, just a bruise I got. It’s a little unseemly, so I’m covering it up with my hair today.” 

Well, it wasn’t technically a lie, though Neji did feel guilty when he saw the answer accepted so easily by his innocent little cousin. How had she reached the age of sixteen without knowing what a hickey was, though? Neji answered that question in his head as soon as he’d asked it: the same way he had - through total censorship of the materials available to him until he’d moved away and been able to find his own information. 

“It looks g-good on you like that!” Hinata chirped happily, and Neji’s tight smile loosened at the sight. She was just too precious. 

“Glad to know you approve,” he chuckled amiably, shrugging on his jacket and then offering her his arm. “Shall we be off?” 

“Y-yep!” 

 


	7. The Elder's Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neji appears before the Hyuuga Council of Elders.

⚞⚟

 

The Hyuuga compound, the main headquarters of the Hyuuga organization and the private residence of its most influential members, was a cluster of building in the outskirts of the Seattle suburbs, each one distinct and separate in function, but close enough architecturally that it was clear they belonged together. Their purpose and ownership was kept secret from the general public, so even passerby often overlooked their grey stone facade after the first few glances, leaving the mystery wrapped up in a seemingly second-rate appearance for a more intrepid soul to undertake. If one took it upon themselves to be that intrepid soul and asked around for more information, they would quickly find that there was none to be found, except for the gossipy old woman next door who says that the only people she sees come and go regularly are young fellows and a teenaged girl, so it must be some kind of swanky private university or high school for rich folks. Everyone knows she exaggerates everything, though, so her words aren’t to be trusted much.

An iron gate no outsider ever dares touch blocked the way into the compound - whether private residence, business or campus is their guess of the day - but Neji pushed it aside without any qualm, holding it open just long enough to allow Hinata to slip in after him before carefully latching it closed again. A quick glance at his watch told him that it was nine thirty-three; he couldn’t help but feel his lips twitch up at the good news. He could find a place to hang his jacket, see Hinata off, and still be ten minutes early for being ten minutes early to his ten o’clock appointment. He had timed that quite nicely. 

A quiet bustle greeted him when he pushed open the door to main building as people drifted to and fro, some leisurely, with a coffee in hand, and some with more hurry in their step. All were as silent as they could be, however, avoiding any excess noise in the hallowed entrance hall with its high-vaulted ceiling and the motto of the Hyuuga family scrawled across the floor in stalky gold lettering: _ Ab Ordine Libertas _ . From order comes freedom. 

Ironic, considering he’d never found any freedom in the order imposed upon him. 

That kind of thinking was straying close too dangerous territory, however, so Neji quickly shut the thought down and placed a hand at the small of Hinata’s back, guiding her to a small room adjoining the antechamber where he could hang up his damp raincoat, revealing the smart suit jacket and high-collared shirt he was wearing underneath. His hair had been frizzled by the rain, another reminder of why he usually kept it back, but Neji managed to at least minorly tame it by running a few fingers through the damp strands before turning back to Hinata. 

“How do I look? Professional enough for a meeting with the elders?” 

Letting out a gentle giggle, Hinata reached up to tuck a particularly frizzy lock of hair behind Neji’s ear, then gave him a thumbs up. “All b-better!” 

“Excellent! I knew I could count on you.” He let his hand rest on Hinata's head for a moment before turning to stare at the door of the coatroom. “I should go. I don’t want to be late.” 

But his feet refused to move. Gritting his teeth, Neji mustered all his willpower and dragged himself a single step forward, but was suddenly stopped by a pair of small arms thrown about his waist from behind him. Hinata’s face buried into the back of his jacket, bunching the material, but Neji couldn’t bring himself to mind. His hands dropped down to cover her tiny ones, and he forced himself to speak in a jovial tone. 

“Hey, what’s this? You know I need to go, right?” 

Hinata muttered something that was lost in the folds of his jacket, her face pressed firmly into the dark fabric. 

“I can’t understand you if you do that, Hinata.” 

“I don’t want you to go,” she murmured quietly, pulling her face back from his jacket just enough that he could understand her words. “I have a b-bad feeling about it.” 

Neji looked up at the ceiling, his eyes losing themselves in the dazzle of fluorescent lights, so unlike the drifting clouds forming shapes before his eyes that he knew lay beyond the manmade sky. “I don’t think there’s a one of us who doesn’t have a bad feeling before going to see them,” he whispered, but the words were quiet and meant for her alone. 

She stiffened as they sunk in, then Neji allowed his facade of professionalism to drop over his features and carefully detangled her arms from around his waist. “I have to go now, Hinata. Please let go.” 

She did as he bid, albeit reluctantly, and Neji strode to the door of the coat room before turning back to her. “I’ll see you soon, Hinata.” 

“G-good luck,” she stuttered quietly, nervously shuffling her feet as she glanced up to gauge his reaction. 

_ She really was too adorable for her own good _ , Neji decided as his professional mask cracked from an indulgent smile that he allowed for a few moments before closing it off again. “Thank you. Take care.” 

Neji stepped from the room before he could convince himself otherwise, hurrying off down the all-too-familiar labyrinth of hallways before Hinata emerged from the coatroom. He didn’t want her to watch him leave. 

His footsteps tapped out a quick rhythm against the stone floors, much faster than he normally walked. He had learned a long time ago that if he looked like he was in a rush around here, less people were apt to stop him for a quick chat or ask why he hadn’t been around as much lately. Not that Neji normally minded exchanging a few pleasant words with the flow of foot traffic around him - all of them were, at most, distant cousins, after all - but today he wasn’t in the mood, and the less people that talked to him, the smaller the chance that someone would see the mark on his neck and call him out on it. Damn Shikamaru and his sharp teeth! 

_ You didn’t seem to mind it when it was happening _ , the cheeky inner part of his mind reminded him, but Neji promptly took the voice, hog-tied it with barbed wire, gagged it with a handkerchief, and then hurled it into a deep, dark chasm at the back of his mind, all in the span of a single step. 

_ Your sass is not currently appreciated.  _

He hadn’t been told where to meet the elders, but then again, he didn’t need to be; they would be where they always were, in an intimidating room in a dark corner of the building that no one ventured to unless they had business there. As Neji approached the hallway that held the set of grey double doors which led to the elders’ room, he met fewer and fewer people until he was alone, his footsteps echoing along the hall with singular clarity. It was only now that he allowed himself to slow, the tempo of his footsteps decreasing to a more manageable beat. 

The double doors came into view as Neji rounded one last corner, entering into a new hallway that was different from the ones he’d been making his purposeful way through until now. It was darker, both in material and in lighting, and gave off the aura of an old stone castle if one squinted hard enough. The double doors themselves were grey monstrosities made to look like stone, though Neji knew that they were too light to be actual stone, and had the same Latin phrase painted across them as the floor of the entrance hall:  _ Ab Ordine Libertas _ . Above that was inscribed a set of scales, the universal and indisputable sign for justice. Neji had to repress a shiver at the sight; no matter how many times he saw them, they still made him uncomfortable. 

A line of chairs sat across from the double doors as a kind of pseudo-waiting room, where those inside the room could clearly see those who were waiting outside if the door was opened. They were all unoccupied except for one, where a young man was sitting with a hunched back, his forehead resting on his clenched hands. Neji’s first thought was that he wasn’t a Hyuuga, or if he was, he wasn’t a full-blooded one, because his hair was blond, not the light brown known as the signature look of the Hyuuga family. Then he remembered that only Hyuuga were allowed to enter the building, let alone make it this far, so it was more likely that he was some kind of distant branch member, a cousin of a cousin or the like, but Neji would need to see his eyes to be certain. 

Not that he cared that much about the man to find out. Flicking his gaze straight ahead of him, Neji sat down several chairs away from the man and checked his watch. Nine forty-six. Perfect. 

The only sound in the hallway came from their breathing, and Neji found the sound rather soothing. He closed his eyes and focused all his energy on calming down his nerves - which were barely buzzing, but that could change at any moment and it was best to be preemptive - and checking his aura a final time to ensure he hadn’t missed anything when he’d been clearing it earlier. It wasn’t perfect, but it would hold up against all but the closest scrutiny. Nodding motionlessly to himself, Neji opened his eyes just in time to see the double doors open and release a young woman. The man holding the door open caught Neji’s eye, and they nodded briefly to each other before the door closed again. Neji stood up, knowing it would soon reopen to admit him. 

As he adjusted his cufflinks, the young woman who had just exited the court of the Hyuuga elders caught his eye. Unlike the young man, Neji could tell by her long, rich brown hair and pale eyes that she was a pure-blooded Hyuuga, and from one of the more respected lineages, if her delicate features were anything to judge by. After gleaning this information, Neji’s gaze slid over her to rest on the door, judging her to be of no more interest to him - at least, until he heard her sniffle, and glanced back to see that her hand rested on her stomach and that she was crying. 

The blond man had stood up as soon as the doors had opened and let her out, and now he ran to the woman and seized her shoulders, giving Neji the opportunity to see that his eyes were, indeed, the pale color of eyes capable of the Byakugan. 

“What did they say?” He asked frantically, searching the woman’s tearstained face for a glimmer of hope. “What was their verdict?” 

“They…” The woman started, then her voice cracked and a look of wondering hope overtook her face, as if she still didn’t quite believe the magnitude of the good news she’d gotten. “They gave their blessing on our marriage, and they said we could keep the baby!” 

Neji had to hide his surprise at the words when absolute joy overtook the young man’s face and he crushed the woman to him in a tight embrace. Considering their obvious difference in standing, they were extremely lucky the elders had ruled in their favor. They might not have been so lucky if, for example, one of them had a pre-existing betrothal agreement. Perhaps that meant the elders were in a good mood today, and he’d get off lightly as well - though, he still didn’t know the reason he had been called here in the first place. 

Overcome by happiness, the young man and woman pulled back from their embrace. Suddenly the blond man reached out to gently caress the woman’s jaw, then pulled her forward into a tender kiss that spoke of hopeful new beginnings. The abject love on their features made Neji blink, and he looked away before he knew what he was doing, suddenly feeling like he was intruding on the private space their pure emotions had created. A hollow feeling blossomed in Neji chest, and he gritted his teeth to ignore it, deciding not to ponder its ramifications. Besides, he couldn’t allow himself to get distracted or he might end up with a worse verdict than they had received. 

As he waited for the doors to reopen, the happy couple beside him broke apart, resting their foreheads together in a gesture of love, their faces wreathed in breathless smiles. The second hand on Neji’s watch ticked loudly into the silence, the only other sound besides their breathing, panting as if they’d both run marathon. The door was going to open soon. They shouldn’t be there when it did; it was an unspoken rule. Should he warn them? Neji flicked his gaze sideways, taking in their breathless appearances. It didn’t look like they would move anytime soon. They weren’t his problem, he harshly reminded himself, but something about their faces made him balk. 

“Excuse me.” 

They both jumped at the sound of his voice, faces turning red from more than happiness as they realized they weren’t alone. Neji met their embarrassed gazes head on before turning back to face the door and fiddling with his cufflinks again. 

“That door is going to reopen in a few seconds at most. You don’t want to be here when it does. They might… might be angry. Angry enough to…” 

He let the words trail off, but by the look of fear on the woman’s face, he knew she understood his insinuation. The young man grabbed her hand and bowed once in Neji’s direction with a quick, “Thank you, sir!” before pulling her down the hallway. 

_ Sir. _ The word pulled a wry grimace to Neji’s lips. The young man was around his age, at the most a year younger and likely older. As he watched them flee down the hallway, stopping at the end for the young man to take his new fiance and swing her around before kissing her again, he felt a sudden urge to call out to them again. 

But that would be frowned upon, so he simply said a quiet, “Congratulations,” sure that they wouldn’t have heard it, before turning back to the door. 

If his counting had been correct, the door would open in between fifteen to thirty seconds. The elders had likely been ready for him the moment the young woman had left the room, but they had a habit of leaving people waiting as a show of power; not often for long, but just enough to make the person unsettled and-

The doors opened, and the doorkeeper gestured silently for Neji to enter the room. He glanced down at the watch on his wrist as the door boomed shut behind him, the broken sound ominous in the cold silence of the room. Nine fifty on the dot. 

“Neji,” the elderly man with graying hair called from his perch at the highest seat in the front of the courtroom, opening his arms in a gesture of welcome. On his right hand winked a signet ring, the gemstone, Neji knew from experience, set in a sharp clawed fitting. “It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?” 

Neji bowed his head, avoiding looking the man directly in the face. “Yes, Lord Hyuuga.” 

“Oh, come now; you needn’t be so formal!” The Elder chided, though there was steel beneath his outwardly friendly tone. 

_ So that’s how today is going to go _ , Neji thought listlessly. 

“Yes, Grandfather.” 

“I believe you spoke with several of us about your recent trip to the east coast in a more private setting,” the Elder mused, rubbing a hand over a chin carpeted in grey stubble. “But it’s been almost a year since we’ve had you in here with all of us. Tell me, how did that trip go again?” 

A knot of fear formed in Neji’s throat at the request, through he instantly set about dissolving it for fear the elders would notice and question him even further.  _ We’re going through that again? _ He mentally cursed.  _ I thought that round of questioning was already finished! _

However, Neji could not afford to let his dissatisfaction show, so he squared his shoulders and addressed the room at large with the statement he’d carefully prepared and given several times before. 

“Sasuke Uchiha called me to request a second pair of eyes for an unusually thick density of spectral energy; I readily agreed, thinking it would be a good chance for the two of us to work together in a low-pressure environment and for Hinata to see an Uchiha and a Hyuuga working in tandem, since I am her mentor and would bring her with me. However, we soon started investigating rumors of a group of wraiths and I deemed it too dangerous for Hinata to join us, so she was left in a safe place most of the time. We eventually concluded that there are no wraiths there currently, just a high number of phantoms, but there have been wraiths in the past.” 

It was very carefully worded not to be a lie; the elders, even without their Byakugan activated, were perceptive enough to see through a lie in seconds. Neji almost held his breath as he listened to the mutters around him swell, then subside without anyone raising their voice against his explanation. 

“And how did the development go?” A voice to his left close to the floor startled Neji, almost jumping him. He kept the urge in check, however, and turned to see the elder that had spoken, recognizing him as the man who organized the teams formed from one Uchiha and one Hyuuga. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“The development,” the elder repeated with a frown creasing his already wrinkled forehead. “Between you and the Uchiha boy. Did you work well together? Could you do so in the future?” 

Neji inclined his head to the elder. “At first, no. Our personalities clashed and we had many… differing opinions that made cooperation difficult. As time passed, however, we grew more used to each other, and by the time I left we were quite comfortable working together, so on the whole, I would say it was a success and that we could easily work together in the future.” 

Mutters of approval echoed through the chamber, and Neji let himself relax a little. He had said the right thing. The elder in charge of the Hyuuga-Uchiha teams nodded to himself and made a note on a piece of paper resting in front of him, and Neji knew the need for his attention had been dismissed, so he looked back to the Elder in the position of most power, his paternal grandfather. 

“Is that the reason I was called here, Grandfather? I can give a more detailed report here if all of you would like, or I can submit one in writing if you prefer that.” 

But the Elder waved the words away. “No, no; that wasn’t why you were summoned. That was just curiosity on my part.” 

_ Only curiosity?! _ Neji had to fight to keep his eyes from widening. In that case, he might not have even needed to give an in-depth oral report, and might have even gotten away with a simple, ‘It was fine.’ Had he screwed things up and accidentally piqued the elders’ curiosity, interesting them in grilling him even more than he already had been? Luckily, Neji surmised by darting his gaze around the hallway, none of the elders besides the one who had already spoken seemed interested enough to ask him any more questions, so he allowed himself to relax again as his Grandfather continued. 

“We actually have two points we want to address today. The first concerns a sudden pulse of energy felt throughout the city several days ago. It wasn’t felt all the way out here, but we’ve had several reports come in from people who were closer to the city, all detailing the same kind of energy spike. However, a report from you was not counted among those, so we were wondering if you felt the spike, or were, in fact, inside the city boundaries at all.” 

All sense of security left Neji as the words drop from his grandfather’s lips like the shells of an artillery bomber into the sudden deathly quiet of the room. Damn that Shikamaru and his ego! Neji had warned him, but had he listened?! Of course not! 

Then the last part of the speech hit Neji.  _...inside the city boundaries at all. _ Shit. That wasn’t good. A Hyuuga wasn’t allowed to leave the boundaries of the area he was assigned to without formal permission. They weren’t accusing him of anything yet, but that was as close as it could get. He had to talk his way out of this one, and  _ not _ fast; preferably slowly and logically, so the elders wouldn’t have any unanswered questions that would come back to bite him later. 

Taking a deep breath to steady the subtle shaking of his fist that he hoped no one noticed, though it was almost certain that at least one person had, Neji looked his grandfather squarely in the eye. “I assume you’re referring to the surge in spectral energy that occurred at approximately eleven forty-seven AM two days ago, centered near the coastal side of the city. I felt it, but I was in my apartment on this side of the city, so I only felt it faintly.” 

Out of the corners of his eyes, Neji could see the elders occupying the lower seats turn and mutter to one another, but his grandfather refused to break eye contact. “And yet you did not write us a report on your findings?” 

Neji quelled his thundering heartbeat, marshalling his thoughts for the best way to get him out of this situation. “I apologize,” he started, bowing his head and breaking eye contact with the Elder.  _ Always admit when you mess up and apologize before they can accuse you. Rule number two for dealing with the elders. Right behind ‘Never - ever - lie’. _ “I will admit that owing to my trip to the East Coast lasting longer than I had originally intended, I have spent the last few days catching up on work that had built up over the period, and haven’t had the time to send in a report even if I intended to.” 

“Even if you intended to?” Neji looked up just in time to see his grandfather’s gaze tighten. “So you admit you weren’t going to send one in.” 

“Yes.” Neji could hear surprised, unapproving titters coming from all sides of the room, but he ignored them and foraged ahead. “As I said, I was overworked. I was tired and not thinking correctly.”  _ Truth. _ “And I was far from the source. I likely didn’t see it as as much of a threat as others might have.”  _ Also true, but not for that reason. Let them draw their own conclusions. _ “In addition, I assumed that if I felt the surge, it could be felt here as well and there would be no need for me to send in a report. I’m actually surprised I haven’t been contacted by my supervisors about it yet.”  _ Starting to stray a little further from the truth. I’d ‘feared’, not ‘assumed’. _

“Indeed.” The Elder’s gaze hardened. “So you slacked off in the attempt that someone else would do your work for you?” 

Neji winced at the ice in his tone. He supposed he would be lucky if he got off with a harsh reprimand and a light punishment for this, but it was better than what he would get if they knew the truth. “Wh-whn you say it like that… Y-yes.” 

“Well, don’t do it again.” 

Neji blinked, sure he couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Wh-what?” 

“Try harder so as to not let it happen again,” the Elder clarified. 

“I… I’m sorry,” Neji faltered, confusion drawing his brows together. “Am I not being punished?” 

The Elder’s eyebrows raised. “Do you want to be punished?” 

“N-no! Not at all!” Neji hurriedly assured him, raising both hands in front of his chest in a gesture of panic. “I hadn’t considered it important before I was summoned here, but now that I was, I just… assumed I would be.” 

“Hmm.” The Elder steepled his fingers in front of him, then laid his chin on them as he looked down at Neji. “Neji, I’ll be frank with you: you are a very important asset to our system. Even as young as you are, your organizational skills are among the best we have at our disposal, and your power is nothing to scoff at either. For the better of three years, you’ve worked tirelessly for us, and this is the first documented mistake you’ve ever made. We’re not about to punish you for that to such an extent that it disrupts the delicate balance to our system, not after all the work you’ve done to strengthen that balance. Instead, we’re putting it down as a reprimand in your file and instructing you not to let it happen again.” 

Neji blinked as the information sunk in. They weren’t going to punish him… because they needed him? Suddenly, something that had been bothering him for a long time clicked. His uncle, Hizashi Hyuuga, had recommended him for this position when he’d been barely eighteen, far too young for the responsibility. He’d thrived despite that somehow, and become an efficient and necessary piece of the Hyuuga machine… to the point that even the Elders couldn’t move him. It’s not that they didn’t want to punish him… they  _ couldn’t. _ He was now untouchable. The job Hizashi had given him all those years hadn’t been an attempt to get him to fold under the immense pressure and disgrace himself… it had been to protect him. 

But that realization left Neji with one more uncomfortable question: If the Hyuuga elders couldn’t control him with the threat of punishment, what else would they use? 

As if to answer his unspoken thoughts, Neji’s grandfather cleared his throat and addressed him again. “Well, moving on. As I said, we had two points of interest in mind when we summoned you here today. The first, happily, is dealt with. Now, it comes to the second.” 

The Elder’s eyes sharpened to blades that stabbed Neji’s chest as he gazed up at the man who held absolute control over the entire Hyuuga family, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe. Something lurked there in his grandfather’s face that Neji was unable to pin down or identify with any degree of conviction, but even just a glimpse of it was enough to freeze the blood in his veins to solid ice. 

“How has the relationship been between you and Hinata? We’re considering speeding up the timeline of your betrothal.” 

The sound of Neji’s blood rushing through his veins whited out everything else around him, until all he could focus on was the looks of triumph on the faces of his grandfather and the other elders.  _ So this is how they plan to control me _ , he thought without emotion, too shocked to even feel the anger he knew was boiling throughout his body.  _ If they can’t threaten me directly, they can threaten those around me that I care about. _

Even when Neji had gotten over his shock enough to speak, he wasn’t sure how to respond. This particular battle was one he had been fighting for almost four years now, since before his eighteenth birthday when he’d been made aware of the betrothal arrangement between him and his precious little cousin… and when he’d truly learned to fear the elders for the first time. They’d presented him with a betrothal agreement bearing both his and Hinata’s signatures, both from when they were very young, Hinata barely able to write her own name- a betrothal agreement he’d had no memory of. No matter how young he was, Neji was sure that he would have remembered signing something this important, so he knew that the elders must have tricked them into signing the document. 

Hinata still didn’t know, and Neji was fighting to make sure she never knew. If he could get the betrothal annulled before she turned eighteen, when the elders currently planned on announcing the engagement, all traces of it would disappear from documented archives - as did all failed plans of the Hyuuga elders. At least their arrogance could be counted on for some good. But if they were planning on moving up the betrothal… then his window of time for securing the annulment before Hinata would find out about the betrothal had dramatically shortened. 

The first time Neji had been informed of the betrothal, he’d protested as soon his voice had returned from the shocked corner it had been hiding in, but his arguments had been largely composed of moral and ethical arguments and they’d been shot down almost immediately by the cold logic of the elders. He’d since done research to back up his case, but his pleas for additional hearings had gone unanswered for years, leaving him with little to work with. Still, he’d prepared for the moment when he could present his case again, and perhaps this time his words would have more effect. 

Carefully tracking the faces of all the elders he could see without turning his head, Neji inclined his head again in an arrogant mockery of a bow. “Hinata and I… are fine, but if I am allowed, I would like to take this opportunity to raise my voice in a respectful protest of your decision.” 

“Respectful protest?” The Elder raised his eyebrows, traces of ill-concealed amusement pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I believe you’ve already made your views on this marriage quite clear… but, if you endeavor not to take up more of our time than you have allotted, we will hear your protest.” 

“Thank you, Grandfather.” Neji bowed again, but lower this time; the humbling gesture was tinged with a modicum of actual respect. “As you well know, I have been against this arranged marriage from the start, but I respect the wishes of my elders and will follow any necessary order given me. However, recently I have gained some new information which I hope will further my case in your reconsideration of the betrothal between Hinata and I. Like any other Hyuuga, I have the well-being and reputation of the family foremost in my mind as I share this with you.” 

Neji’s grandfather’s expression lost some of its amused surety, clearly not expecting Neji to have prepared a statement of such high caliber. Some of his colleges were even muttering amongst themselves, looking intrigued by his words. 

“And what might that be?” He snapped almost waspishly, a tone Neji didn’t fail to notice. 

Straightening his back to the utmost degree, Neji fearlessly locked eyes with his grandfather. 

“It is illegal in the state of Washington to marry a first cousin.” 

The room exploded in a flurry of mutters and whispered comments spoken just loud enough to carry through the dull din - “Is he right?” “I didn’t know that.” “Has this ever been a problem before?” “I don’t think we’ve tried to arrangement a marriage between members of this close relation for a hundred years of more; the laws are likely to have changed.” - but Neji kept his eyes glued to his grandfather’s, challenging him to speak out against the truth he had just spoken. He appeared to be stunned for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and he raised a hand, silently demanding quiet from the other elders gathered there. 

“And you know this how, exactly?” He hissed, an undercurrent of malice leaking into his otherwise restrained tone. 

“Revised Code of Washington, Title 26, Chapter 4, Section 20,” Neji stated coldly, allowing no emotion to bleed into his voice. “Subsection 1, part b: Marriage is prohibited when the spouses are nearer of kin to each other than second cousins.” 

The room exploded into chatter once more, and this time the Elder was only able to quiet it down by demanding silence with a shout. Once he received it, he sent a glare to a younger man - younger by the elders’ standards; he was perhaps fifty - sitting in a chair at the ground level. 

“Look it up.” 

For a brief moment, the man looked shocked that he had actually been addressed by the head Elder, then he burst into a flurry of activity, dragging open a laptop on his desk and searching for something with a few economical clicks and tapping of keys on the keyboard. His brow furrowed in concentration as he unconsciously muttered what he was looking for. 

“Revised Code… Title twenty-six… chapter… chapter…”

“Four,” Neji supplied, earning him a grateful look from the man and a glare from his grandfather. “And section twenty.” 

“Ah, thank you…” It took a few more seconds of tapping, then the man scrolled through a screen, his eyes skimming paragraphs Neji couldn’t read through the back of his laptop screen. As Neji watched, his eyebrows travelled further and further up his forehead as he read until he sat back, rubbing his eyes, and conceded, “He’s right. Illegal to marry anyone of closer relation than a second cousin.” 

Neji carefully concealed the triumph coursing through his system from his face; it wouldn’t do to let his grandfather see it, though it was difficult in the face of the Elder’s expression. He was so angry, his old, leathery skin was turning a delicate shade of puce. 

Gritting his teeth in obvious annoyance now, the Elder once again shouted the muttering occupants of the room for quiet. “I said silence, you fools!” Silence once again reigned in the room, various elders around the room instantly freezing, not matter the position they were in; some were caught with their mouths open, in the middle of a word or sentence, and one woman in the corner of Neji’s vision was even frozen in the middle of a sneeze. 

By the ugly glare on his grandfather’s face, Neji knew that he had managed to piss him off- not an easy feat, nor something that should be attempted often for safety’s sake, but it meant that he was succeeding in making him at least think about the cons of the betrothal, even if he wasn’t actively reconsidering it. It was a step in the right direction, if nothing else. 

The one thing that worried Neji was that the Elder didn’t look concerned at all, just irritated, like someone might get at a fly buzzing around their head in a late summer’s mid-afternoon, too hot for excess movement: it was a nuisance, but a crushable one if they could summon up the energy to do it. This worry expanded when Neji watched an altogether ugly smile spread across his grandfather’s face. 

“It is illegal  _ in the state of Washington _ to marry a first cousin. That means other states allow it, yes?” 

His gaze bored into Neji’s the whole time he was speaking, and by the end of the question, Neji felt his mouth go dry. He couldn’t say that he hadn’t anticipated a roundabout solution like this being proposed, but he’d hoped the new information would give him more pause than it had. Swallowing once to get rid of his dry mouth, Neji felt one hand curl into a fist at his side. 

“Yes,” he admitted. “Nineteen of them, to be exact.” 

The elder snapped his fingers to catch the attention of the man who had looked up the law before. “Look it up.” 

In the same way as before, the man jumped at being addressed, then set about his task with fervor. After about two minutes of waiting, in which no sound was heard but the clicks of furious typing and the harsh breathing of the Elder, the man leaned back with a nod. “He’s correct. Nineteen states in the U.S hold marriage between first cousins to be legal, the closest being California.” 

That ugly grin spread further across Neji’s grandfather’s face, a smile that was assured of his victory. “And there is no specific statute in the state of Washington that forbids first cousins from marrying elsewhere and returning?” 

“No…” The man replied slowly, scanning his laptop screen. “I don’t see anything specifically banning it.” 

“Then there we have it! The marriage can simply be held in California, and then you can return to Seattle.” The expression on the Elder’s face was so smug, Neji thought it might burst. 

He decided he might like to see that. 

“There’s no specific statute banning the practice of first cousins performing evasive marriage and returning, but the 1910 Washington court case of Johnson vs. Johnson set the precedent to proclaim void all first cousin marriages with the primary domicile in Washington if they had married elsewhere to avoid the law against cousin marriage.” Neji had to hide the corners of his lips lifting when he saw his grandfather’s face fall. Damn, he hadn’t anticipated how  _ good _ this would feel. “‘A marriage between relations within the prohibited degrees is void, its continuance is repugnant to good morals and public policy, and it will be annulled at the instance of either party, notwithstanding the applicant entered into it knowingly and wilfully.’ 26 Cyc. 907.” 

Murmurs abounded around the room at that, mainly consisting of: “He memorized that?” “That’s amazing!” “If he was using that mind to benefit us instead of fighting…” 

The Elder looked so taken aback, he was unable to speak, and Neji felt a surge of triumph at being able to strike him speechless. Then his face cleared and he snapped once again to the man behind the laptop. 

“Look it up! Faster!” 

Jumping and swallowing nervously, the man shook at the sound of the Elder’s command but quickly set to his job. This time, it only took about thirty seconds before he looked up to confirm Neji’s words again. “He’s right. Case No. 8185, Department Two, January 22, 1910.  Appellant, Nannie N. Johnson, respondent, Amel Johnson. Married in Victoria, B.C. to circumvent the law. Court ruled they needed to divorce.” 

The Elder ground his teeth in obvious frustration before his eyes lit up again. “Common law marriage.” 

“Washington doesn’t recognize common law marriages,” Neji quickly countered. “And common law marriages are only recognized when the couple fulfills all requirements for legal marriage anyway; that is, that none of the statutes declaring marriages void are broken, including the statute against marriages between less than two degrees of kinship.” 

The ugly expression returned to Neji’s grandfather’s face. “You know we have absolute control over your assignment, don’t you? This whole conversation becomes laughably moot when you realize we could easily relocate both you and Hinata to a state where you could legally marry.” 

A rumble of tumultuous emotions ran their course through Neji’s chest, soon solidifying into nervous determination; he had one last argument, one last shot in the dark, but the chances were likely that if he used it, he would lower himself into a position where he was worse off than he was before. Still, if he backed down now, they would win, and he’d never be able to fight them on equal footing again. He had no real choice. 

Taking a deep breath and looking his grandfather in the eye, Neji said quietly, “But would you move me to a place where you could not fully utilize the talents you praised not a few minutes ago? Or risk having me somewhere where you couldn’t keep an eye on me?” 

Unlike his previous statements which had been met with murmurs and the rustling of a hundred bodies shifting to whisper their own thoughts to their neighbors, this time frozen silence descended over the room after Neji’s well-worded declaration of war, more complete and still then even when the Elder had commanded it. After a few beats of shocked reticence where nothing moved, not even the air in the lungs of the room’s occupants, the Elder slowly stood, the sound of his chair scraping back on the rough tile like the knell of an executioner’s blade being sharpened. Neji swallowed thickly, though his mouth was too dry to wet his throat much; he’d probably just fucked up in just about the worst way possible. 

“Was that a threat, Neji  _ Hyuuga _ ?” He enunciated very clearly, putting special emphasis on Neji’s last name as if to remind him where he was and who was around him. 

“Not at all,” Neji quickly stated, “but I know how you think. I’ve never actively gone against you or any member of this family, but I’ve stood up to you. I’ve spoken out and held firm in my opinions. People like that… you tend to keep them under closer surveillance, don’t you? That might be difficult to do from a state that would allow a marriage between Hinata and I, like, for example, Alaska.” 

This time, the council of elders stirred at Neji’s words, but still made no sound. His grandfather’s face transformed from anger to a cold facade of stone so devoid of emotion, Neji was sure he wouldn’t be able to tell what was going on behind the mask even if he’d used his Byakugan to read the colors of his emotions. Then the Elder stepped out from behind his desk and started to descend the steps from his high perch down to the floor of the room where Neji stood. 

Elders never took to the floor when their council was in session, especially not one with as high a position as Neji’s grandfather. The elders around the edges of the room broke into indecipherable mutters, but Neji was frozen in place by the strong, stony gaze of his grandfather slowly approaching him. 

_ Well, you fucked this one up pretty good, _ the irate voice in the back of Neji’s head chimed in, having finally cut the ties binding him and dragged himself up out of the deep pit Neji had banished him in earlier, but Neji didn’t even react to his presence; he was frozen, his leaden limbs refusing to heed his frantic instructions to turn and flee in the face of those powerful, gorgon-like eyes. 

The Elder only stopped when Neji was within arms reach, tilting his head to the side as if deciding on the best way to skin him to cause the maximum amount of pain before he died of blood loss. Without a word, he reached out and grasped Neji’s chin, forcing him to look up into his face. Neji was on the taller side of average, but his grandfather towered over him, both in height and in bearing. 

“Byakugan!” He snarled, his face morphing into a terrible expression as his grip on Neji’s chin tightened, his fingers pressing hard enough that Neji was sure they would leave a bruise. His eyes flared white, searing themselves into Neji’s vision as the heat of his gaze intensified and swept through Neji’s body, down to the most intimate parts of his emotions. 

“Let me make this very clear,” the Elder growled, the anger in his voice letting Neji know exactly how far over the line he’d stepped. “You are not part of this council. You do not get to assume what we do or how we should do it. In fact, you do not get to make any sort of conjectures on what we do. Your job is to simply obey our commands, and you’ve proven here today that you cannot even do that- and directly after a display of mercy from us, no less!” 

“I-” Neji started, but his grandfather cut him him off with a vicious backhand, knocking him off-balance and sending him stumbling to the ground. 

“Silence!” He roared, his dead eyes locked onto Neji’s as he looked up at his grandfather from the cold ground, the chill seeping up into the bones of his leaden limbs. “You do not get to speak- you have not the right to! This is our council, and we make the rules! All your posturing and talk of laws means nothing to us!” 

This time, Neji wisely chose to keep his mouth shut, averting his eyes from his grandfather’s seething face. The skin of his cheek pulled in an unnatural way at the motion, causing a twinge of pain that he winced at, which in turn only made the pain worse. He reached up to touch the sore spot to find it was damp, and when his fingers came away, he saw they were colored red with his own blood. 

_ The ring, _ he realized dimly, the inside of his head still ringing from the force of the blow.  _ His ring… across my face… _

Apparently this wasn’t good enough for the Elder either, because before Neji knew what was happening, he felt a fist in the hair at the top of his head drag his face upwards, forcing him to look into his grandfather’s furious face once more. 

“I do not think you fully understand the situation you are in right now,” he spat, the words falling around Neji like shards of broken glass. “The Hyuuga family is not bound by the law- we are our own laws. Our duties do not fall under the jurisdiction of any government agency or facility, therefore we operate outside the law. If we need something that can’t be bought in a legal store, we get it. If we want two people to marry, we marry them whether or not the  _ State of Washington _ thinks it ethical. And if someone becomes a problem…” His hand tightened in Neji’s hair, his fingernails scraping painfully against his scalp. “We eliminate them. No questions asked. Do you understand now?” 

Oh, yes. Neji understood, all too well. He had just thrown away his best shot at getting himself out of the mess he was in all because he’d counted on the misconception that the elders were law-abiding citizens of their state and country, something so predictably wrong it was almost laughable. He’d lost the battle, maybe even the war, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Because  _ Ab Ordine Libertas _ . From order comes freedom. But not his freedom. 

But what he said was, “Yes, Grandfather.” 

The Elder gave a sharp tug on Neji’s hair, causing him to hiss in pain. “You’ve lost the right to address me so casually. Use my title.” 

His title… Neji’s face burned in humiliation, but he forced his lips to form the words. “Y-yes, Lord… Lord Hyuuga.” 

“Good.” The Elder dropped his fistful of hair and turned his back on Neji as he crumpled to the floor, wiping his hand on his pants and releasing his Byakugan as he made his way back to his seat. 

Neji heard rather than saw him go, his head lowered in submission and defeat so his forehead rested against the cool tile of the floor. He’d gambled a little too much, flown a little too close to the sun, and his wings had melted away, leaving him to tumble into an unsympathetic and cold ocean. Hot tears of anger prickled at the backs of his eyes, but Neji forced himself to hold them inside. He’d already suffered enough humiliation today; he wouldn’t lower himself even further. 

“Are you still down there?” The cruel voice echoed out again. “Get up, Neji. Don’t disgrace yourself any further.” 

Neji obeyed the voice without thought, raising his head to look at the figure of his grandfather, seated back behind his desk.  _ What is it about this man that scares me so much? _ He wondered as he pushed himself to his knees, and then unsteadily to his feet.  _ He’s old, and physically weak- I barely felt that blow, and the only reason my face hurts now is because of his ring. Why, then, do I feel so helpless facing his eyes?  _

At the moment, he didn’t look terrifying to Neji; in fact, he didn’t even look angry. His eyes were filled with mild disappointment, but little else. No trace of the monster who had stared Neji down with eyes rabid enough to turn the bravest hero to stone remained. He looked almost harmless sitting in his high-backed chair with his hand steepled, like a normal doting grandfather. 

Except that illusion had been shattered when he had stalked over to Neji and ground his pride into the dirt. 

“You’re bleeding,” the Elder said, a trace of concern in his voice. 

Neji wasn’t sure if it was manufactured or authentic, or which one would be worse. “It’s fine,” he answered robotically. “Doesn’t hurt.” 

“I see.” A trace of pride flashed through his eyes, but it was gone before even Neji’s perceptive eyes could pick it up. “Well, I think that concludes our meeting. Unless anyone else had anything to discuss?” 

Silence greeted his question, the other elders in the room obviously still as shocked as Neji was. It was then that Neji understood why he was so afraid of his grandfather: it wasn’t because he was terrifying, but because he wasn’t. While sitting behind his desk, he looked like he couldn’t do anything, like his bark was worse than his bite. It made him easy to underestimate, a mistake made all too often - and one Neji had fallen right into, even with all his planning - until he stood up, that is, and revealed his true power: not physical prowess, but the title of Lord Hyuuga, most recent clan leader in a long line of leaders of the most powerful family on the Western Continent, and the authority that came with it. 

After a few seconds had gone by and no one had spoken up, the Elder clasped his hand together. “I guess we are done here, then. Neji, you may show yourself out.” 

The sudden dismissal made Neji’s head reel more than it already was. He, again, wasn’t going to be punished for his actions, despite the severity of his newest crime? Was he really that untouchable? 

Not wanting to push his luck any further than he already had that day, Neji turned on his heel and stalked from the center of the room, trying to disguise the anger turning his hand into a fist. He must have been unsuccessful, however, because just before he reached the double doors, the voice of his grandfather rang through the hall again. 

“Wait one moment.” 

Neji closed his eyes to steel himself for a half second, then turned back around to meet his grandfather’s gaze once more. “Yes, Lord Hyuuga?” 

The Elder waved away the formal words. “Please. You don’t have to be so formal.” 

_ So this is how it was going to be.  _ “Yes, Grandfather?” 

“I just wanted to let you know,” he said almost conversationally, his light tone of voice belayed by the hardness in his eyes. “We’ve been considering moving up the schedule of your betrothal with Hinata. As you know, the original plan was to tell her of the betrothal after her eighteenth birthday, give you two a few years to court and get used to the idea, then hold the marriage. Because of that little stunt you just pulled, I’ve decided to move the timeline forward. Hinata will be informed of your betrothal within the month, and the marriage will be held the day she turns eighteen, giving you a little over a year and a half for courtship.” 

Neji had to avert his eyes; if he didn’t, his grandfather might see the murder hiding therein. So not only had he blown his only shot at fixing this, he had also moved his sentence even closer. And not only his sentence, but Hinata’s as well. His hands curled into fists, then relaxed in defeat. When he looked up to meet his grandfather’s gaze once more, his eyes were dead and soulless. “Yes, Grandfather. I understand.” 

“Excellent. You may go now.” 

Neji turned to leave, only to have the same voice draw him up short again. “Oh, sorry, I almost forgot. One more thing.” 

Dead eyes swung back to listlessly meet the Elder’s. “Yes, Grandfather?” 

“That mark on your neck…” he mused, the words finally bringing Neji’s eyes back to life, infusing them with panic, as he instinctively slapped a hand over the fading purple mark Shikamaru had left on his skin. “Yes, that’s the one,” the Elder continued with a chuckle. “You didn’t think I wouldn't notice it, did you?” 

Neji’s mouth dropped open but no reply came out, so his grandfather waved it away. “Nevermind. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you aren’t to get too attached to her.” 

“...Her?” 

“Yes, the one who made that mark,” the Elder clarified. “You won’t be allowed to see anyone else after you and Hinata start your courtship, so you should distance yourself now. Let her down easy… or drop her like a rock, if that will get the point across better.” 

“Distance myself…?” Neji couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That’s it? You mean… you’re not angry at me?” 

A peal of hearty laughter rang through the room from the foremost chair, followed by a string of more restrained chuckles from the other elders. “Angry at you? For having a girlfriend?” Neji’s grandfather asked, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Of course not, my boy! This is the twenty-first century; times have changed, and we can no longer enforce archaic policies on our youngest generation. So, no, we are not angry. A causal relationship is nothing to be ashamed of, nor anything for us to ban. Just as long as you recognize where your duties lie.” 

_ Your duties… _ The words made Neji feel sick to his stomach. Still he managed to bow stiffly as he answered. “Understood.” 

“Excellent. You may go now. And actually get to leave this time; I promise that was the last of it.” 

“Yes, Grandfather.” 

Not sure if he could stomach being in the same room as the council for much longer, Neji turned swiftly on his heel and walked as quickly as he could toward the door without running. The doorman gave him a sympathetic look as he pushed the doors open for him to exit, but Neji ignored him. He had no need of the pity of lesser Hyuuga. Not when he had people he still had to protect. 

Someone was waiting in a chair on the other side of the door, a young man nervously tapping his foot and fiddling with his watch. As the the doors boomed shut behind Neji, he jumped up and approached him with wide-blown pupils. 

“How are they today? Feeling generous, I hope?” 

_ Does this look like the face of triumph to you? _ Spat the cynical voice in the back of his brain, but Neji just ignored it, too tired to even give it a response. 

“Don’t push your luck too hard,” was all he said before walking away, leaving the nervous man to stare after him in a mixture of sympathy and terror. 

Neji’s footsteps echoed in the empty hallway like knells from a bell tolling out the few remaining seconds of his life before a death sentence was carried out. His shoulders drooped, his hands dangled listlessly at his sides, and his eyes were downcast. His gaze focused on the floor a half step in front of his own feet, which was probably why he didn’t notice the couple waiting for him until he was almost on top of them. 

“You’re the man from earlier, aren’t you?” 

The words forced him to a halt and drew his gaze upwards to see a blond man and a woman with delicate Hyuuga features waiting for him. It took his frazzled brain a few seconds to recognize them, but once he got a good look, he saw that they were the couple who had gotten the good news ahead of him. 

The woman held a hand out to him. “We wanted to thank you for earlier. My name is Mai, and this my boyf-” She cut herself off, then gave a sly look at the man next to her before correcting herself. “My  _ fiance _ , Alex.” 

“Neji.” Neji grasped the proffered hand, finding that was the only word he could say. 

“Thank you so much for what you did earlier,” the blond man gushed, clasping his arm. “It was our first time being called in for a meeting, so we had no idea of the protocol. If you hadn’t told us, we might have been where we shouldn’t have been, and then…” He trailed off, obviously not wanting to finish the thought. 

“The important thing,” the woman insisted, “is that you helped us, and we wanted to offer you our thanks.” 

“Thank you,” Neji managed woodenly. 

The smile started to slip from the woman’s face. “Are you… are you alright? Are we intruding? You didn’t…” She gasped, pulling her hand from his to cover her mouth. “Oh my God, you got a bad answer, didn’t you? I’m so sorry; we didn’t think-” 

“It’s alright.” Neji forced his lips to form some semblance of a happy expression. “We can’t all… we can’t all have everything go exactly right for us, can we?” 

“What happened?” The blond man asked quietly. 

A wry smile pulled at the corners of Neji’s mouth. “I… also received their blessing on my marriage.” 

The two exchanged a glance. “Isn’t that… a happy thing?” The woman asked. “Shouldn’t we be congratulating you?” 

“Happy…” Neji had to laugh, as hoarse as it was- his body knew no other natural response. “It should be… should be happy…” 

The first tear that rolled down Neji’s face caught him by surprise, dripping off his chin onto the cuff of his jacket. Still too stunned to even comprehend the emotions hidden behind a wall of fog in his brain, he reached up to find his cheek damp, a second tear trickling from behind his unaffected mask to join the first. 

_ I’m… I’m crying?  _

As if the simple acknowledgment of the act was enough to unfurl his moment of weakness, Neji’s eyes began to spill over with reckless abandon, scalding tears pouring down his cheeks and tracing burning trails as they went. His hand covered his mouth, pressing against his trembling and parted lips and blocking any unwanted noise from escaping his throat.  _ It… it’s over _ , he realized, the sudden clarity hitting him like a bolt of concentrated electricity.  _ I lost… after all this time, and still can’t do the right thing. I’ll never be able to protect her, no matter how hard I try.  _

“Um… Are you okay?” 

The blond man and the woman were giving Neji pitying looks, and he suddenly, irrationally hated them for it. He spun away, one hand pressing against the wall for balance, to hide his face as more tears dripped off his chin and splashed against the floor. No one should see him like this, least of all strangers. 

“I… I’m…”  _ Fine.  _

But the word wouldn’t come. Instead, the hand resting flat against the wall curled into a fist as his other hand moved up from his mouth to the top of his head, where it grabbed a fistfull of hair as if it could tug it free from his scalp. As his breathing turned ragged, Neji felt a hand - delicate and slight; the woman’s, most likely - gently touch his shoulder. 

“I… I’m sorry for… what you’re going through. Is there… is there anything we can do to he-?” 

Neji stiffened at the contact, and before the woman could finish her question he stuck out blindly at her- not enough to hurt, just enough to push her away. His forehead fell forward to embrace the cool surface of the wall, his eyes squeezing shut so he could no longer see. A wave of irrational rage swept through him from his head to his toes; he needed to smash something, to main and hurt and kill! The urge flooded his senses before he could control it, and before he knew what he was doing, Neji reared back to strike the wall with all the force that resided in his untrained arms. 

The blow never landed. Nothing stopped it, no one grabbed him, but a fraction of a second away from the moment where his fist would have made contact with the hard, unforgiving surface, his arm slowed until it halted a hair’s breadth away from the wall. Letting a tremulous breath escape his mouth, Neji allowed his hand to bump gently against the wall, causing neither him nor his intended target any damage. The will to fight drained out of him from his palm to the wall, like the dissipation of the energy in a system over the vast surroundings of a universe. 

He stayed like that for a good minute, slowing his breathing down to halt the flow of tears from his eyes. They eventually hesitated in their incessant rush long enough for Neji to push himself away from the wall, wipe his eyes, and turn back to the people who had witnessed his humiliating loss of control. The blond man had his arm curled protectively around the woman, and both were regarding him with pity and more than a little fear. 

_ It’s because I cried. A Hyuuga never cries. Not in public, at least.  _ Neji let his gaze flick around the hallway, gauging how public his display of weakness had truly been. There was no one besides the couple before him in the hallway, but around the next bend he could hear several voices, any of which could turn the corner and see him at any second.  _ I have to get out of here. Before anyone else sees me like this. _

Inclining his head so he doesn’t have to meet the couple’s eyes, Neji said, “I apologize for my abhorable behavior. You’ll likely never see me again, so please, don’t let it trouble you.” He hesitated for a second, then added, “Congratulations on your engagement.” 

Then he swept past them without a backwards glance, the ends of his unbound hair fluttering in his wake like the hem of a cloak. Neither one of them called out to him as he turned the corner and exited into the next hallway over, though he did hear them murmur something to each other, the only phrase of which he caught was, “…sorry for him.” 

Neji gritted his teeth as he sped up, power-walking down the slightly busier hallway in the hopes that no one would stop him. He didn’t need their pity, dammit! He was a successful Hyuuga with a job he was good at and a clear future! He had both what he needed and what he wanted from life, and was better bred than both of them combined- especially that blond, half-breed looking man. They could not even come close to Neji’s station - in any other situation, they would not have even been able to approach him, let alone chat so casually - and they were headed for a life spent fighting against the whole Hyuuga family for the slightest crumb of respect, based on their current decisions, their marriage and the accidental baby just starting to grow in the woman’s stomach. What did they have that he didn’t have? Nothing! 

Nothing except the ability to marry for love. 

The thought brought Neji to a full stop in the middle of the hallway, disrupting the flow of traffic and causing several irate people to throw glares his way, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He wasn’t jealous of them; couldn’t be jealous of them! The Hyuuga family was a fairly large one, and the elders ran it like a clan, arranging marriages between different sides of the family to best preserve the bloodline, a practice they saw as necessary to best protect the power of the Byakugan from dwindling. They seldom allowed young members of the more elite families to choose their own partners, and almost never allowed a marriage outside of the family. It wasn’t all too different from the way aristocratic families were run in medieval Europe, a once completely acceptable family law now challenged by modern standards. 

Still, Neji hadn’t minded the old-fashioned rules when he was younger and had grown up expecting an appropriate marriage to be chosen for him when he reached the right age, even a little grateful that he wouldn’t have to worry about finding a suitable partner himself. Those thoughts had been dashed, however, when he had learned the name of his intended and seen the betrothal agreement both of them had unwittingly signed as children. He’d known then that, for him, there was to be no peaceful marriage to a wife he would care for dutifully, but without passion, set in a future carefully mapped out by people smarter than him for the betterment of his clan. 

He couldn’t allow the life they’d planned for him, for Hinata’s sake. He loved his little sister too much to follow the orders with blind obedience. But in a closed society like theirs, disobedience was sometimes impossible, no matter how hard someone fought against the system. Neji had just proven that. 

At the threat of tears starting to well up in his eyes again, Neji put his head down and started walking through the hallways at a faster clip than before, desperation giving his steps extra speed to escape the jaws of the Hyuuga battlefield before another opponent could appear to challenge him. He kept his eyes pasted securely to the floor and made it to the front antechamber without anyone stopping him. As he pointed himself in the direction of the exit and hurried toward it, his foot came down directly on the gold letters melded into the marble floor:  _ Ab Ordine Libertas. _ From order comes freedom. 

The words left an ashen taste in Neji’s mouth, like the floor itself was mocking him for his failures. 

He burst into a run, startling the few other people in the antechamber, and headed straight for the door, making his escape while he still could. It was darker outside than it had been when he and Hinata had made the journey to the compound earlier in the morning, though a brief glance at his watch told Neji it was only ten forty-seven. A quick look at the sky confirmed his suspicion: rain clouds were gathering, and in his haste to leave the Hyuuga compound, he’d forgotten to go back to the coatroom and retrieve his rain jacket and umbrella. 

Well, he wasn’t about to go back for them now. He would just have to call Hinata and ask her to bring them over tomorrow when she came for her les- 

Hinata. 

Damn it, everything looped back to her! Could Neji think of nothing that didn’t remind him of his failure that afternoon, a failure that had fucked up both the rest of his life and the life of person who held the most value to him, the person who trusted him to protect her the most? The person he’d willingly called a little sister for the past decade and a half? 

The first drop hit Neji squarely in the eye as he looked up at the gathering rain clouds, which was quickly followed by another, than another, then a deluge of water raining down from the sky. Neji simply stood there and let the rain fall on his face, too drained to produce any other action and finding himself uncaring as to whether his suit remained dry. The rain trickled down his head, weaving through his thick hair, like it was washing away the stains of his failure from his mind. 

Neji knew the rain was cold, but somehow, he couldn’t feel it. He reached a hand upwards, as if to grasp something far beyond his reach, before his arm sagged like that of a puppet whose strings had been cut and swung back down to his side. 

Without a clear destination in mind, only knowing he couldn’t go back to his apartment yet, Neji started walking again, hunching his shoulders against the trickle of water that seeped through his jacket and flowed down his spine. Perhaps a little walk in the rain would serve to clear his thoughts, give him a fresh perspective on things. At the very least, the damp might drive his mind from its current state of numb acceptance. 

 

⚞⚟

 

Hinata flopped down on her bed with a sigh, her phone landing on the covers next to her and denting her comforter. Ever since they’d come back from that trip to the East Coast, Neji had been acting strange and it was bothering her.  He'd been acting especially weird today, even if he'd had to go see the elders. Nerves could only count for so much. Something was wrong, and it was hurting her that he wouldn’t tell her what it was. 

Sighing, Hinata rolled onto her side, staring at her silent phone. The only person who ever contacted her was Neji, and he would be in his meeting now, so there was no chance he’d text her… but she had given her number to that trio of stalkers earlier that morning. She’d expected at least one of them to have sent her a message before now, even just a ‘Hey, programmed your number into my phone, this my number’, but there was nothing there. 

Rolling back onto her back, Hinata let out another sigh. Perhaps she shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up so much. They were all older than her - even the youngest was at least a year her elder -  and they were Neji’s friends. Of course they wouldn’t want to hang out with his silly kid sister. No one would want to hang out with someone like her, who couldn’t even talk right. Curling in on herself, Hinata squeezed her eyes shut. No one would ever want to be friends with her. That’s just the way things were. She was just too sheltered, too ignorant, too broken. 

Just as she allowed the tension to drain from her body, however, Hinata heard a buzz coming from beside her head. Moving faster than she had thought possible, she grabbed the phone and sat up, looking down at the screen to see a notification for a message from an unknown number. WIth trembling fingers, she tapped the notification and unlocked her phone to read the message. 

_ Hey, Hinata! This is Udon from Konohamaru’s phone. He forbade us from texting you because he wanted to be the first one, but he’s been writing and rewriting what his first message to you should be for the past hour, and we got tired of waiting so I decided to give him a little help.  _

This was followed almost immediately by a second message, this time in all caps: 

_ NO I WAS NOT!!!!!!!!!  _

Hinata had to stifle a giggle at the sight. It was so like him; she could almost hear Konohamaru’s voice shouting the words. 

After a few seconds, the phone vibrated several times in Hinata’s hand, rapidly displaying a series of new messages. 

_ OH _

_ Um _

_ Well this is awkward _

_ Hi, Hinata _

A grin spread across Hinata’s face as her fingers flew over the screen, typing up a reply. 

_ Hi, Konohamaru  _

As the seconds ticked by as no response came, the smile started to slip from Hinata’s face. Why wasn’t he replying? Had she said something wrong? 

Half a minute later, just when she’d been about let her phone drop back to the bed and give up, a new message came, but from a different unknown number. 

_ Hey, Hinata, this is Moegi. Don’t worry about the radio silence from Konohamaru; I think you broke him. What did you even say? I think he’ll need a few minutes to recover, but he’ll be fine. Eventually. Probably.  _

In the middle of typing up a reply, Hinata’s phone buzzed again, this time with a message from a third unknown number. 

_ This is Udon- and my real number, not me from another phone. I have to thank you for whatever you said to Konohamaru; his face is completely priceless right now.  _

This was followed closely by a blurry candid of Konohamaru staring at his phone with wide eyes, looking like he wasn’t sure if the world had just been handed to him or his phone was going to blow up in his face, and Hinata found herself once again stifling soft laughter. 

_ Maybe, _ she thought, programming all three numbers into her phone, where they almost doubled her existing contacts list,  _ maybe Neji is onto something. Maybe it’s better to be a child for as long as I can. Because these childish things aren’t going to last forever, and eventually I’m going to have to learn to shield myself.  _


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Kisame finally take on the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Neji has a lot of thinking to do- which leads to a potentially devastating discovery.

⚞⚟

 

“I wish you could tell me if my tie was on straight or not.” 

Itachi snorted unsympathetically, swinging his feet as they dangled off the edge of Kisame’s bed, where he was perched as the other dressed for his first time appearing as the gang’s leader in front of all its members. “You have a mirror, Kisame. You can tell if your own tie is on straight.” 

“Yeah, but it feels more... I don’t know, official? Intimate? - when someone else does it.” 

“Alright then, have it your way.” Itachi slipped off the bed and padded towards Kisame, guided to his position by the sound of his voice earlier, touching his shoulder when he reached the bigger man. Using his sense of touch as a guide, he slid his hand along Kisame’s shoulder until it reached his collarbone and his tie, which he gently tugged a little flatter. “Better?” 

“You just made it more crooked.” 

“See if I care, then!” Itachi threw his hands up into the air and turned his back on Kisame with an irritated  _ harumph.  _

He wasn’t able to get very far, however, because before he could take more than a few steps, Kisame grabbed his arm and reeled him back. “And where do you think you’re going?” 

“To finish getting myself dressed,” Itachi responded irately. “I do take slower than the average person, you know.” 

“You’re already good with what you’ve got on.” 

“Excuse me?” Itachi’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead, though they were hidden by the bandana wrapped around his empty eye sockets. “This is the first time you’re appearing in your formal capacity as the Boss of this gang, Kisame, and you’ve selected  _ me _ above everyone else there to be your right hand man! I can’t come out wearing just a pair of dress pants and a white shirt!” 

“I know you can’t,” Kisame said in a soothing voice, holding on to Itachi to prevent his escape with one hand while the other pulled a garment from his closet. “I have something for you here.” 

“What is it?” Itachi asked with curiosity, but Kisame just spun him around so he was facing the mirror he couldn’t see and his back was to Kisame’s chest. 

“Just hold out your arms.” 

Still curious but wanting to be obedient, Itachi bit his tongue and held out his arms, waiting patiently for the slide of material across his skin. When it came, it was heavier than he expected, and when the garment was fully on, he shrugged both shoulders to feel the weight of the fabric that was pulling downwards on his shoulders. 

“Is this… a suit jacket?” 

“And that’s not all,” Kisame declared, giving his shoulder a pat. “Turn back around.” 

Obediently, Itachi did as he was told, and as soon as he faced Kisame again, he felt the bigger man’s hands encircle his neck. For a moment, uncertainty shot through him - what  _ was _ he doing? - but that soon melted away when Kisame’s hands drew back, leaving the sensation of a slim piece of fabric sliding around his neck over his collared shirt. 

A tie? 

His question was answered when Kisame flipped up his collar and adjusted the ring of cloth around his neck, his big hands fumbling at his collarbone to knot the material in an acceptable manner. Definitely a tie. When Kisame dubbed it good enough, he turned Itachi around again so they were both facing the mirror and gave a contented sound at what Itachi guessed was their reflections. 

“There.” 

“Kisame, are we… matching?” 

“Do you mind?” 

“Not at all!” The corner of Itachi’s lip twitched up. “Besides, most suits look alike anyway.” 

“So they do.” Kisame let out a low chuckle, then rested his hand on Itachi’s shoulder. “Here, let me do one more thing.” 

“What?” 

But Kisame didn’t stop to explain, just swiftly reached up to Itachi’s face and tore away the bandana that was covering up his empty eye sockets. When the air, so much colder than the skin-heated cloth had been, hit the scar tissue, Itachi tensed up and hissed, trying to hide his face in his hands, but was unsuccessfull as Kisame stopped him by grabbing both of his wrists with one hand. 

“Stop squirming, Itachi; it will be over soon, and the harder you struggle, the more time it will take.” 

With great personal effort, Itachi stilled himself with a calming breath, but irritation still washed off him in waves. “You could have at least warned me. You know I don’t like them being uncovered, and least of all unexpectedly.” 

“If I had, you would have avoided me.” 

“...Fair point. Just get what you wanted to do over with.” 

Itachi heard the sound of the fabric of the bandana settling to the top of the nearby dresser, then a clatter as something harder was removed in its stead. For a split second, Itachi wondered what it was, then his question was answered as he he felt the teeth of a comb against his scalp. 

“I already brushed my hair this morning, Kisame.” 

“Yes, but I can do it better.” The comb worked its way through Itachi’s hair, destroying the part he had carefully constructed that morning and pulling his hair back into a kind of wave. “There. Now you look like a gangster.” 

Itachi heaved a sigh, though he was internally pleased. “Is this really necessary?” 

“It’s always necessary to look the part. Isn’t that what you told me?” 

“I suppose so,” Itachi mused as Kisame carefully tied the bandana back over his empty eye sockets, smoothing his hair down so it wouldn’t get caught in the knot. “It’s getting a bit long, though, isn’t it? They wouldn’t cut it at the hospital because- well, you know. Sharp things and the like. Do you think I should get it cut shorter?” 

“I like it the way it is,” Kisame declared, dropping his arms around Itachi’s shoulders and hugging him to his chest. 

“Mm-hmm.” The corners of Itachi’s mouth curled up. “I feel like I look like a badass.” 

“You do look like a badass,” Kisame assured him. “All you need is muscles like mine and you’ll be the perfect stereotypical mobster.” 

“As if. What would I be able to accomplish with muscles?” 

“Intimidation.” The answer was immediate, no hesitation, and Itachi gave a mock pout, which he knew Kisame would be able to see in the mirror. 

“Am I not intimidating enough for you already?” 

With a hearty chuckle, Kisame pulled away from Itachi completely as he rummaged in a drawer for something. “Not next to me, you aren’t. You look like a toothpick.” 

“Well, it’s not like I can help that!” Itachi snapped, then paused when he heard the click of metal against metal. “What is that?” 

Silence hung thickly in the air for a few seconds before Kisame cleared his throat. “I have one more thing I’d like you to have today. I don’t know if you’d like it, though.” 

“Like it? Whyever wouldn’t I like it?” Itachi frowned, then stuck out his hand. “Just give it here.” 

For a few moments more, Kisame hesitated, then he placed the thing he was holding into Itachi’s waiting palm. He couldn’t tell what it was when his fingers first curled over it, but he knew it was metal and solid. When he brought his other hand to it, however, his fingers easily recognized the shape and he drew in a shocked breath. 

“Kisame… I can’t use this.” 

“I know, I know, I thought you’d say that,” Kisame sighed. “But everyone else out there will be packing heat, even I will, and they won’t respect you if you don’t as well. They’ll think you’re soft and-” 

“No, no, that’s not it,” Itachi quickly interjected before Kisame could try to convince him further. “I’m not objecting to carrying a gun for moral reasons; I’ve even trained to carry them before. I just can’t shoot one. Because… because I’m blind.” 

“Oh!” That drew Kisame up short, and Itachi could practically see the frown on his face as he thought. “I mean, you’re not going to be using it for anything. It’s mostly just for show. Letting someone else know you’re also carrying a firearm is often enough to make them back down from a confrontation they otherwise wouldn’t think twice about. And if you absolutely needed to… couldn’t you like… aim by sound or something?” 

“Not if you wanted any degree of accuracy,” Itachi rebuked. “I’d be liable to shoot an ally by accident instead of the one I was really aiming for.” 

“Then you won’t have to shoot it,” Kisame declared. “Just carry it. It might make them think twice about underestimating you.” 

Itachi curled his hand more comfortably around the grip of the gun. “I thought that was the goal, though.” 

“To underestimate you enough to ignore you, not enough to believe your presence is worthless. We want you to be able to hover in the background without much attention, not have people actively crying for your dismissal.” 

“Makes sense.” Itachi held aside one side of his jacket. “Is there a holster for this thing?” 

In the moment between his question and Kisame’s answer, Itachi could almost see the pleased smile spreading across Kisame’s face, then he cleared his throat and bent back to the dresser drawer. “Yes there is.” 

When he stood back up, he took the gun from Itachi’s hands and replaced it with the holster, which felt like it was made from either a reinforced leather or some kind of faux material. A long line of the same material drooped from either side of his hand, which Itachi recognized as a belt. 

“This one’s a belt holster,” Kisame explained in answer to Itachi’s unasked question. “I chose it for two reasons: one, because it’s easy for the bottom of it to peek out from under your suit jacket if you want it to, and two, because this gun is a little heavy for the one extra side-arm holster that I have. Do you want to do it yourself or do you want me to do it?” 

“You’d probably better do it. I’ve never put on a holster before,” Itachi admitted, raising his hands over his head to pull his jacket up enough to reveal the belt loops at the waist of his pants. “Though I have shot one once or twice. Sometimes we would get issued guns fitted with silver bullets when we were going up against troublesome ghosts. They were unsafe, though, so they never let us keep them and we never had them when we really needed them.” He gave a bitter laugh as Kisame started to feed the belt of the holster through the loops on his pants. “As my presence here makes that painfully obvious.” 

“Well,” Kisame said as he latched the belt at the front of Itachi’s waist, “perhaps it's selfish of me, but I can’t help being grateful for that. Because if it weren’t the case, there’s no guarantee that you’d be standing here with me today.” 

Itachi’s jaw tightened and he snapped, “You’re right. It is selfish.” Then his tone softened and he allowed one hand to drop down and rest on top of Kisame’s. “But I’m starting to feel that way myself.” 

“I’m glad.” Kisame caught Itachi’s hand in his own and laced their fingers together for a quiet moment, then sighed and pulled away. “Alright, here’s the gun. The safety’s on right now, so it’s not liable to go off, but there’s always a chance it might.” 

“It’s not going to go off and shoot me in the foot if I jostle it, is it?” Itachi asked dubiously. 

“Nah, you gotta pull the trigger for that. Or have a really bad gun, but this one’s been maintained recently. You should be fine.” 

“That’s reassuring,” he muttered under his breath as Kisame handed him the gun and guided him to place it in the holster, making the bigger man laugh. 

“If this gun is the worst of your worries for this meeting, I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem.” 

Itachi pulled his jacket down to cover the tell-tale bulge of the holster and patted the concealed gun to ascertain its shape and definition underneath the layer of fabric. “We’ll see about that.” 

“I think you’ll be surprised.” Kisame turned back to the mirror and adjusted his tie one last time, the sound of his fingers tugging on the fabric rustling through Itachi’s ears, then he sighed again. “Well, here we go. Miru should be here any minute now.” 

“Why did she agree to act as our liaison, again?” Itachi asked as he leaned against the dresser, listening to Kisame give his suit a final brush-down. “I thought she didn’t trust us.” 

“She doesn’t,” Kisame answered, “but I think you made a good impression on her the other night.” 

“Well, thank God for that,” he muttered. “In between my vomiting and screaming at her, I suppose.” 

A heavy hand fell on Itachi’s shoulder. “You don’t have to be so jaded about it,” Kisame admonished. 

“I’m not- I’m just surprised she could ever respect me now.” 

“It’s not your strengths that are admirable, Itachi, but your ability to overcome your weaknesses.” 

“Wow,  _ that  _ was a backhanded compliment.” 

“You know what I meant.” 

Their bantering was cut short by a respectful, yet demanding knock at the door. “That’ll be Miru,” Kisame said, striding towards the door with Itachi following close after. 

The first thing Miru said when she opened up the door was, “Your tie is crooked.” 

“See, I told you someone else needs to do it for you!” Kisame complained, then suddenly choked as, assumedly, Miru decided to fix the tie herself. “Wait…! Not… that… tight! Can’t… breathe!” 

“You’re lucky that’s just a tie and not a noose,” Itachi chuckled, only to find himself yanked forward by his tie as well a second later and the same tie-straightening procedure done on him. 

“Both of you are hopeless,” Miru sighed as Itachi spluttered incoherently and Kisame laughed at him. “I’m surprised you managed to put your pants on the right way.” 

“Well, Itachi did have a little trouble with-” 

“Can it, Kisame!” Itachi interrupted through gritted teeth, which only made Kisame laugh harder. 

“I guess I’ll just have to leave that one up to your imagination.” 

The sound of hair rustling against cloth told Itachi that Miru was shaking her head in disbelief. “How are you two so close? You haven’t known each other for much longer than a few months, right?” 

Kisame was quiet at that, but Itachi laid a hand on his arm and answered for both of them. “Sometimes, it’s not the amount of time you spend with someone, but what you do with them that draws you together.” 

There was a smile in Kisame’s voice as he laid his hand on top of Itachi’s. “I couldn’t have said it better.” 

“I can’t decide whether you two are stupid or amazing.” 

Itachi dropped his head forward to hide his tight smile. “I hope that leans more towards amazing one day.” 

“As do I,” Miru whispered under her breath too quietly for Kisame to hear, but not so for Itachi’s precise ears. Then she shook her head again and said more loudly, “We should get going. They’re waiting for you.” 

“Yes, of course.” Kisame’s hand fit snugly into the small of Itachi’s back, prepared to guide him along the way. 

They traversed the twisted hallways quickly, Miru’s footsteps tapping ahead of them at an impressive tempo. By now, Itachi was familiar enough with the general layout that he could recognize their destination: the hall with the long table that had housed their first meeting with Miru, Raiga and Fuguki. As they drew near it, Itachi suddenly felt a bubbling of nervousness in his stomach, and he grabbed Kisame’s sleeve. 

“You remember what we talked about? What you need to say? Our signals?” 

“Yes, Itachi, I do,” Kisame murmured in his ear, giving him a reassuring pat on the back. “We went over it ten times or more. We can do this.” 

“Yes, we can do it,” Itachi repeated, but it was more to himself than an affirmation of Kisame’s earlier words. 

That was all they had time to say, however, because Miru stopped then and announced, “We’re here.” 

Taking a step in front of Itachi, Kisame took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I’m ready.” 

Inclining her head with a rustle of moving hair one last time, Miru pushed open the door and announced their presence to the crowd gathered within. 

“Our new Boss Kisame and his advisor, Itachi.” 

_ Advisor. _ Itachi found he rather liked the sound of that. 

The sound of around thirty chairs scraping backwards as their owners stood respectfully echoed through the open door as Kisame entered, with Itachi following close behind and slightly to his right. When they were through the door, Miru closed it behind them, and Kisame nodded to the assembled men and women. 

“Thank you all for agreeing to this meeting today. Please, be seated.” 

The chairs scraped against the floor again as everyone reseated themselves, and Kisame continued on toward the table until he jerked to a halt so suddenly that Itachi almost ran into him. 

“Fuguki,” he growled with a not of warning in his voice. “I thought I said there was to be an extra chair placed at the head of the table? Specifically, to my right?” 

“Oh, you mean for your blind little guard-dog?” The smirk was clearly evident in Fuguki’s voice, which emanated from a spot at the head of the table that should have been occupied by Itachi. “Don’t worry; I took the liberty of placing a chair for him further down the table, with the rest of the newer recruits. I could even lead him there for you, if you like.” 

The gritting of Kisame’s teeth was audible from where Itachi stood. “That will not be necessary, Fuguki. In fact, this wouldn’t even be an issue if you had done as I requested in the first place.” 

Alarm bells started ringing in Itachi’s head, and he placed a hand on Kisame’s sleeve, one of their predetermined signals not to speak again until Itachi removed it. He hadn’t anticipated that Fuguki would start his power play so early, but now that the game had begun, neither of them  could afford to make a single mistake, especially not in front of the whole gang. He would have to diffuse this situation before the meeting started, and quickly. 

“Forgive me for my mistake,  _ Boss _ ,” Fuguki said with even more smugness in his voice, especially on the heavily accented title. “It’s just that we are not used to such…  _ demanding _ leadership. Shall I send for another chair? Or have everyone on one side of the table all move down a chair to make room for your little pet?” 

A few titters and chuckles broke out from around the room, and Itachi could feel Kisame’s muscles tense in anger under his hand, though he didn’t respond to Fuguki’s bait, as Itachi’s signal dictated. So there were quite a few people here that supported Fuguki in his power play. In that case, Itachi would have to be careful not to insult him too much while asserting Kisame’s dominance over him. Taking a step past Kisame, Itachi turned his head in Fuguki’s direction and fixed him with a passive smile. 

“You must have been without a definitive leader for some time if the request for a single extra chair seems demanding to you.” 

Silence descended over the room as everyone held their breath, waiting for Fuguki’s response, but it appeared that he was too flabbergasted by Itachi’s comment to even formulate one. On Kisame’s other side, a short, muffled short of amusement rang out into the silence, breaking whatever spell of quiet had been cast over the room. 

“He’s got you there, Fugu,” Miru said with amusement from her own seat at the table. “And it was your fault for not getting the right amount of chairs. Just give him yours and go get another one.” 

Itachi offered up a silent thanks to Miru before shaking his head. “It would be rude of me to displace you like that, Fuguki- though I would like to sit up here with the rest of you. Perhaps that chair you mentioned setting out for me further down the table could be moved?” 

He let his hand slip off Kisame’s sleeve, ending his bout of silence, and he cleared his throat before nodding in Fuguki’s direction. 

“If you would, Fuguki.” 

A full two seconds ticked away before Fuguki moved, standing up with unwanted fervor and throwing his chair back at least half a foot. “Yes, Boss,” he said with a rather sullen air, then turned to look down the length of the table and barked at someone at the other end.

“Jinpachi! Chair! Now!” 

The man he had called to jumped from his chair with a start, stuttering his consent as he rushed to drag the chair up to the front of the table, letting the back legs scrape against the floor as he went as if deliberately marking his passage and letting both Itachi and Kisame know every second of time he spent on the task was a second he reviled. When the chair was slammed down in front of him, Itachi murmured a quiet thank you to him, but he only snorted and started loudly back to his seat. 

Kisame reached over in front of Itachi after the man had left and angled the chair to fit next to his own - on his right side, between himself and Fuguki, though he had to shift his own chair to the left slightly, closer to Miru, to make room for it. With a soft inclination of his head in thanks, Itachi slipped into his chair and pulled it in close enough to the table that he could rest his hands on it, hearing Kisame at his side do the same. As he pulled his chair forward, he made sure to ‘accidentally’ brush the side of his suit jacket back for a moment, exposing to Fuguki’s gaze the holstered pistol at his side. The sound of Fuguki’s teeth grinding in irritation was audible to Itachi’s keen ears, and he had to hide the smile it caused. An angry Fuguki would be more belligerent, but less crafty and thus easier to deal with. And besides, it felt good to know he had the upper hand- if only for a short moment. 

“It appears we’re all here; are we ready to start the meeting now?” Kisame asked, and on Itachi’s other side, Fuguki coughed almost in disbelief. 

“We’ve all been waiting for you.” 

The accusation was audible in his tone, but Kisame didn’t let it phase him. “As I recall, my Father used to make everyone wait when he called meetings like these, sometimes for only a few minutes and sometimes for almost an hour, to keep them on their toes. Perhaps that’s a tradition I should continue.” 

“Perhaps,” Fuguki replied through gritted teeth. 

“Which brings me to the reason why I called this meeting.” Kisame paused for a moment, likely to sweep his gaze around the table. “I see familiar faces here, as well as those I don’t recognize. For those of you who don’t know me or don’t remember who I am, I used to belong to this group many years ago. My Father… was the Boss before me, and now that he has… passed, I’ve returned to take his place.” 

“You  _ used _ to belong?” An unidentifiable voice from halfway down the table asked. “So you left?” 

Several disapproving hisses echoed from around the table, and Itachi could physically feel the ambient temperature of the room chill a few degrees. 

“Well, Jinin- it is Jinin, isn’t it?” After a pause in which the person who had spoken before grumbled an affirmation, Kisame continued, and Itachi logged the voice in his memory under the name Jinin. “Yes, I did leave this group. I wanted to tell you all that in person so we could start with a clean slate, no secrets and no lies. I was born into this group, and it meant the world to me because it  _ was _ my whole world. I left, not because I chose to abandon everyone here, but because I fought with my father and decided I could no longer follow him.” 

The air in the room fluctuated in strange patterns, growing softer in some places and harder in others. Itachi carefully pulled his hands from the table and placed them in his lap, feeling Kisame’s gaze flit over to him and quickly take in the sight of one of their predetermined signals:  _ speed it up.  _ The truth was good to get out in the open, but this crowd wouldn’t appreciate a sob story. 

Clearing his throat slightly, Kisame continued, “At the time I left, I’m told, my father was sure I would return someday. I was sure I would not, but… It appears I was proven wrong. I’m back now, and I don’t plan on leaving again.” 

That was good. Short, sweet, and to the point, if a little heavy. Itachi moved his hands back onto the table, scratching the back of his left one to make the movement seem more natural. 

“So, in short,” Kisame continued in a lighter tone, “I’m here to take over the position my late father left vacant, and I thought I’d like to make all of your acquaintances before I made any decisions.” 

“Make our  _ acquaintances _ ?” Another voice from down the table echoed incredulously. “Excuse my language,  _ Kisame _ , but where the fuck do you think we are? The fuckin’ Royal Opera or some shit?” That drew a laugh from several of his compatriots, but he talked over them, his belligerent words piling up higher and higher until they eclipsed everyone else at the table. “Do you know where we are? In the fuckin’ slums, the dregs of this city, and you talk like you been educated, taught to looks down on the fuckin’  _ petty criminals  _ like us! You ain’t one of us no more, Kisame; even the way you talk proves it! How can you expect us to follow you if you can’t even speak our language? Our  _ real _ Boss would never do that!” 

In the face of the accusation, Kisame remained silent for a moment, his head bowed down toward the table. “In case you haven’t noticed, Mangetsu, I am not my father.” 

“Oh, believe me, we noticed.” 

Shocked silence overtook the whole room as everyone held their breath at Mangetsu’s daring accusation. Kisame remained motionless for a few moments, then slowly stood again, the sound of his chair scraping backwards against the floor thunderous in the silence. “Speak your language?” He said quietly, standing and removing his jacket in a steady and menacing fashion before folding it over the back of his chair, then unbuckling what Itachi assumed was his side holster and hanging that over the back of his chair as well. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to, but the words don’t easily leave you once you learn them.” He beckoned Mangetsu forward. “Come here.” 

After a brief, almost unnoticeable hesitation, Mangetsu sneered at Kisame and threw his chair back so hard, it tipped over and hit the ground, then stalked up to where Kisame was waiting for him. “You gone soft. You ain’t got it no more, I’ll bet.” 

“How much are you willing to place on that bet?” Kisame asked steadily, and Mangetsu laughed. 

“You ain’t gonna wanna put money on that bet, you little shit. It ain’t gonna be worth it.” 

“How about… your loyalty instead, then?” 

“My… loyalty?” Mangetsu appeared flummoxed for a second, then his brain caught up to the meaning behind the words and he laughed again. “Yeah, sure, you reject. You can have my loyalty if you beat me- just don’t count on it too hard.” 

“If you say.” The hidden amusement in Kisame’s voice was plain to Itachi, though likely not to anyone else in the room- except, perhaps, the more perceptive Miru. “I’ll even let you have the first punch; how does that sound?” 

“Your loss! There ain’t no room for manners here!” Mangetsu spat, launching himself at Kisame without warning. 

It only took a few seconds of the sounds of flurried impacts that Itachi wished he could see before Mangetsu was on the ground, groaning, and Kisame stood over him, cracking his knuckles. 

“Whew, that wasn’t much of a workout at all! You disappoint me, Mangetsu. I thought you’d give me a little more trouble than that!” 

The room seemed frozen at the sight, at least until Kisame let out a hearty laugh. 

“Man, it has been a while since I’ve done something like that! Really gets the blood pumping, doesn’t it? Well, are there any other takers?” 

Perhaps an invitation for a mass brawl wasn’t the way Itachi would have done it, but he could admit that he was inexperienced in these types of situations and Kisame knew what he was doing, so he was content to sit back and listen to the event as it unfurled, trying to hide the amusement in his smile. 

For a few shocked seconds, no one even moved, then a man halfway down the table jumped up with a cry and sprinted towards Kisame, only to be knocked down to the floor within a single blow. 

“Come on!” Kisame jeered, nudging his downed foe none-too-gently with the tip of his boot. “Is that the best you’ve got?” 

That was all it took; a split second later, half the table was on their feet, rushing towards Kisame, and the majority of those who remained were only behind the first wave because shock had dulled their reaction time by a few seconds. Even Raiga, who was sitting on the opposite side of Miru, joined the fight with an excited yell after a few seconds, leaving only Itachi, Miru and Fuguki sitting on opposite sides of him, and two more people he didn’t know sitting further down the table. 

“It is often like this around here?” He asked conversationally as a body flew over their heads and landed in the middle of the table. 

“Sometimes it’s worse,” Miru whispered like it was a secret, leaning closer to Itachi in a confidential manner. “One time, Raiga started a fight with a few of our drug runners and they were at it for  _ hours _ .” 

“What over?” 

“He has a special friend, a little boy named Ranmaru that he treats almost as his younger brother, who runs for us. He was caught and beat up pretty badly, and he’s been in the hospital for a while. Raiga blamed the other runners for not protecting him.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he recovers soon.”

“We all do. He’s the only one who can calm Raiga down when he gets really going.” There was a bitter trace in Miru’s voice, and Itachi mentally made a note in his  _ Miru and Raiga  _ file:  _ “thing” is no longer current. Jealously? Bad breakup? _

By the time this conversation had ended, Kisame had chewed his way through at least three-quarters of his attackers and spit them out on the floor in crumpled heaps- though not critically damaged ones. Apparently he wasn’t having any trouble at all with his mass of attackers, because he had time to throw a cheeky quip their way. 

“Are you sure none of the rest of you want in on this? Miru? Fuguki? Itachi? It’s amazingly cathartic!” 

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Itachi replied sarcastically, and Miru shuddered in response. 

“Fistfights aren’t really my style.” 

“Suit yourself!” Kisame cheerfully turned back to the last few of the mob still standing, punching one so hard he flew backwards and smacked into Itachi’s chair with a loud groan. 

Of those still standing, one of them was one of the few women in the gang besides Miru, and she taunted Kisame, “You wouldn’t hit a woman, now would you?” 

To which Kisame cheerfully replied, “I will if she hits me first!” and punched her in the face. 

Amusement twitched up the corners of Itachi’s mouth as he listened to the exchange and Miru’s subsequent call of “Nice try, Ameyuri!” - which was his excuse to why he didn’t notice that Fuguki hadn’t responded to Kisame’s call, nor his subtle movements under the table until he heard the snick of something metal sliding out of its casing. 

It took a second for the sound to register in Itachi’s brain, then another for him to recognize what it was, during which Fuguki stood up and started towards the man in the center of mess of downed bodies, who, judging by the sound of his voice bouncing off the far wall, was facing away from them. 

Itachi didn’t have time to think before his body moved, launching itself out of the chair and taking Fuguki to the ground with him, the switchblade he had pulled - the sound Itachi had identified earlier - skittering across the ground until it came to rest not far from where Kisame was standing. The brawl instantly stopped, though Itachi wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to the knife or the fact that he had just body-slammed one of their most prominent members to the floor. 

“Get off me, you little- mph!!” 

Fuguki struggled to get up, but Itachi shifted his weight to make it impossible, sitting almost upright on his upper back and pressing his face against the floor to prevent him from rising. He even thought about drawing his gun and pressing it to the back of his captive’s head, but decided that would be going a little too far. The goal for this meeting was for Kisame to demonstrate his dominance over the other members of the gang, not drive them away. 

The few remaining members of the mass brawl still standing backed away as Kisame took a step towards the knife on the ground and picked it up, turning it over in his hand and considering it as he walked toward the man Itachi had pinned. Tapping it to the side of his nose, he squatted down next to Fuguki, then brought it close to his face. 

“Is this yours?” He asked in a deadly quiet voice, and Itachi lessened the pressure keeping his face pressed to the floor so he could speak. 

“Yes, it’s mine! So what if it is?” He spat defiantly, his voice strangely thick, as if there was blood in his mouth. Itachi frowned a little; had he broken the man’s nose? Whoops. He’d have to fix that one later. 

In that same deadly quiet, Kisame continued, “And was this going to end up inside my back?” 

This time there was a brief hesitation before Fuguki spoke again. “No.” 

“Liar!” Kisame reared back with one booted foot to kick Fuguki in the face, but Itachi stopped the blow with his hand before it connected. The force of the blow made him wince; Kisame’s boots were heavy. 

“Why did you stop me?!” Kisame roared, though the words were more restrained than his earlier accusation. 

“Because he’s telling the truth.” That stopped Kisame, and he squatted back down in surprise. 

“Explain.” 

“He opened the knife at the table, in full sight of Miru and at least a dozen other people,” Itachi said, his grip tightening on Fuguki’s shoulder. “If he really wanted to stab you, he would have waited until he was much closer to open the knife, so fewer people would see it and he would have a smaller chance of being stopped. No, you weren’t his target:  _ I _ was. He was testing me, trying to prove that I was incapable of performing the job he jeered at me for having- how did you say it? The  _ blind guard dog? _ ” 

There was a moment of silence as Kisame absorbed the information, then he grabbed Fuguki’s chin himself, forcing him to look him in the face. 

“Is this true?” 

“It is,” Fuguki answered woodenly. “I was never intending to stab you. I was planning on holding it to the back of your neck, nothing more. To prove a point.” 

“And what point is that?” 

“That he shouldn’t be here!” Fuguki suddenly roared, shocking Kisame backwards and silencing the rest of the room, who had been getting to their feet in various stages and levels of quiet. “When we came to you, we wanted a leader, not a soft old man who couldn’t stand to leave his little pet behind! An outsider like him has no purpose here! And to make it worse, he’s crippled and useless! We all know why he’s really here- he’s your little fucktoy, isn’t he?” 

Even Itachi sucked in a breath at Fuguki’s crude words, anger coursing through his system. How dare he call him a mere fucktoy! Though, of course, Itachi and Kisame had had sex before, but that was completely beside the point! A  _ fucktoy _ ?! 

Kisame leaned forward to tell Fuguki off, but Itachi beat him to it, grinding his face back into the floor. 

“A  _ fucktoy _ ?!” He hissed into Fuguki’s ear, grabbing his head by the hair and pulling it back only to slam it into the ground again. “ _ That’s _ what you think I am? How dare you! You have no idea the things I’ve survived in my life!” 

“Itachi-” Kisame started, but Itachi stabbed a finger in his direction. 

“No, I am not listening to you right now! Fuck the plan; it’s useless if they can’t even take me seriously!” Itachi grabbed the hair on the back of Fuguki’s head, winding his fingers through it so it would tug painfully. “Let me tell you something very clearly,” he hissed directly into Fuguki’s ear, his breath fanning over the back of his neck and causing a shiver down his spine that Itachi found himself sadistically pleased by. “I may be blind, but that does not mean I’m crippled or useless. Before they were destroyed, these eyes saw things your fucking little mind could never even  _ try _ to dream of. Why else would a man do  _ this _ to himself?” 

His hand whipped up to tear his bandana off, but stalled, shaking, right before his fingers brushed up against the fabric, his anger melting away into the familiar shame that had ruled his life for the years he had spent locked up in his father’s hospital. Kisame’s weight shifted before him, the sound galvanizing Itachi into action before he could protest again. His fingers touched the fabric over his empty eye sockets, curling around the band in preparation to tug it off. Once, twice, he tried to remove it, but both times his nerve failed him.  _ Well, third time’s a charm, _ he thought dimly, and taking a deep breath, pulled the bandana from his vacant eye sockets. 

A rumble traveled around the room, ranging from shocked gasps and mutters to murmurs of surprise from the few who had seen him when they had escaped the hospital and surmised his desire to keep the scars private. Beneath him, he felt Fuguki shift so he could turn his head and look up at Itachi’s face, and the weight of his gaze settled against his skin like the prickling burn of light magnified through a lense to increase its strength. Around the room, other points of magnified light settled on him until the heat grew so great he thought he wouldn’t be able to stand it and sweat started to seep from his brow, but Kisame reached down and pulled him to his feet, tucking him gently against his chest to shield him from the scorching weight of the gazes. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he whispered quietly in Itachi’s ear, taking the bandana from his hands and reaffixing it to his face, smoothing his hair under the knot to remove any flyaway strands. 

“And I think I did, so we’re even.” Itachi allowed himself to be held for a few moments longer before he sighed and pushed himself out of Kisame’s embrace, back into the litany of stares holding him hostage. Tilting his head to the side as if in consideration, he moved back to where Fuguki lay on the floor and squatted down next to him. 

“I am not an invalid, nor am I anybody’s pet,” he said clearly, reaching down and resting a hand on Fuguki’s shoulder. “I am an individual with strengths and weaknesses, much like you; my weaknesses just happen to be a little more visible than some. I am here for two reasons alone: because where I was before was a clinical hell your Boss thought no man should have to endure, and he thought I could help this group and find a place within it. And if you can’t respect the decision of someone you decided to call your Boss and Leader, you’re in the wrong line of work.” 

The room echoed with silence for a few second before Itachi removed his hand from Fuguki’s shoulder and held it out in front of him. Everyone waited, breathless, as another second ticked by before Fuguki moved from his position on the ground and took Itachi’s hand, allowing the blind man to help him to his feet. 

“Thang you bery buch,” he said thickly, his words distorted so much that Itachi could barely understand him, and he quickly reached up and touched Fuguki’s upper lip, finding it wet with blood. 

“My goodness, your nose must be completely broken! I’m dreadfully sorry about that. Here, let me examine it.” 

Without waiting for permission, Itachi shoved Fuguki back into his chair and pushed his head forward so the blood would drain out his nose and not go down the back of his throat. With gentle fingers, he explored the crooked ridge of the other man’s nose, whistling at the damage he found. 

“Yep, it’s definitely broken. It has to be set soon, otherwise it will heal crooked like this. This will hurt, but only for a moment.” 

With a sharp tug, Itachi realigned the bones in Fuguki’s nose before he could protest, dragging a howl of pain from him before he quieted, and whispered again, “Thang you.” 

“It’s no problem. Nasal fractures take about six weeks to fully heal, and you should avoid any activity that might cause another break for at least one or two weeks. Take Tylenol for the pain if you need it, and I can fix you up with something you can wear on your nose like a cast for the next couple of weeks if you want.” 

After a long pause, Itachi heard him nod. “Yes, blease.” 

“Excellent. Find me after the meeting is over and I’ll make it for you. And someone get him some tissues so he doesn’t bleed all over himself.” He turned back to the crown of people who Itachi had knocked to the floor. “Anyone else got any injuries? Broken bones, sprains? They’re best treated fresh.” 

“Um…” A voice tinged with pain quietly ventured, and Itachi recognized it as someone who Kisame had addressed before as Jinin. “My, ah, shoulder really hurts… I don’t know if there’s something wrong with it or not, but I can’t move my arm…” 

“Well, that’s usually a sign that something’s wrong, Jinin. Come here and let me have a- well, you know.” 

Jinin moved closer to Itachi, his footsteps hesitant. “How did you know it was me?” He asked, hovering just out of reach. 

“Your voice is very distinctive,” he answered with a crook of his finger. “Now are you going to let me examine you, or are you just going to sit there in pain for the rest of the meeting?” 

Apparently that was enough to satisfy the suspicious man, because he slowly extended his arm forward and allowed Itachi to grab it, pushing up his sleeve to feel his shoulder. He whistled in surprise at the damage he found there. 

“It’s dislocated. That must hurt a lot; I’m impressed you’re still as coherent as you are. Here: this will only take a moment. Please relax.” 

Itachi’s grip on Jinin's arm suddenly tightened viciously, and he carefully but swiftly pulled the arm up above Jinin’s head and around to pop the bone back into the socket, a move he had seen doctors perform on small children a thousand times before when he used to intern at his father’s hospital. Jinin let out a strangled yell and yanked his arm out of Itachi’s grasp, steaming with anger and ready to deck him. 

“WHAT THE HELL, YOU MOTHERFUCK- oh. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” 

“Fortunately, dislocations are relatively easy to fix,” Itachi said amicably, cracking his knuckles. “Provided you know what you’re doing, that it. Is there anyone else?” 

After seeing Itachi’s success with both Fuguki and Jinin, several more people came forward with injuries, and he identified and treated a dislocated finger, a sprained wrist, a bump on the head, and two false alarms that were only slightly severe bruising before everyone else had made it back to the table and sat back down. The last people to sit were Kisame and Itachi himself, who insisted on examining his almost nonexistent wounds before the meeting started up again. 

As Itachi was brushing his fingers over Kisame’s cracked and slightly bleeding knuckles, he murmured, “Showoff.” 

“Hark who’s talking,” Kisame shot right back under his breath. “I didn’t know you had any medical training.” 

“I don’t really; I was a set in a track to become a doctor, but I never got far enough before my, ah,  _ accident  _ to reach the practical stuff. Most of what I know I learned from working as an intern in my father’s hospital and watching the doctors- though, I suppose I could count that as medical training.” He patted the back of Kisame’s hand. “You’re fine. No bruising, even. What are you, some kind of monster?” 

“Some people have called me that,” he joked, though Itachi could hear an underlying note of sadness that anyone else might have missed, which made him wish he hadn’t brought it up. “We have a job to do now, though, so that story will have to wait for another time. Sit down and I’ll start the meeting again.” 

Itachi did as he was bid, and Kisame sat down next to him after putting his holster and suit jacket back on. It was hard to tell under the occasional hisses and grunts of pain that stood as a reminder of the brawl that had taken place just a few short minutes before, but Itachi thought he could feel a more respectful air permeating the room, and not just aimed at Kisame. When he was settled into his chair, Kisame steepled his hands and swept his gaze around the table. 

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” he announced, “I think we should try to start this meeting again. Hello, everyone: my name is Kisame, and I’m going to be your new Boss from now on. This, sitting next to me, is an advisor of mine, Itachi, and he  _ will _ be afforded the same respect as any other member of this group. Now, as some of you have so astutely recognized already, I am most certainly not my father, who was the previous Boss of this group, and I am going to run things differently than he did. It has also come to my attention that the prowess our gang has slipped in the eyes of surrounding groups, something that could cause us unnecessary hardship if we are constantly being underestimated and thus made a target of more violence than we can handle. I have an idea to combat this: instead of building the image of the gang back up, we change it completely, starting with a new name. When my father became Boss of this group, he changed the name from Mist to the Sword Ninjas. I’d like to propose that we change it back. What is everyone’s thoughts on this? The floor is now open.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Moegi could hardly contain her laughter as she walked down the street under her umbrella, her eyes glued to her phone. After Hinata had texted her, Udon, and Konohamaru all back - short, polite messages that suited her personality perfectly - to tell them she had programmed their numbers into her phone, they had convinced her to join a group text with them. She had been nervous at first at the prospect, but they’d managed to convince her in the end, and Moegi was extremely grateful that they had. She was just so adorable and innocent that everything she said was innately funny, especially since she was obviously new at texting and didn’t know what many of the abbreviations for things meant. 

As Moegi was watching Udon explain to Hinata the subtle distinctions between the usages of “LOL”, “LMAO” and “ROFL”, she caught sight of a young man sitting on bench in the rain, his face buried in his hands and his clothes soaked completely through. The sight wasn’t uncommon - after all, some people simply could not go through a personal crisis without making a big deal out of it and sulking in the rain in an altogether too cinematic fashion - but something about this particular young man drew her eye. Maybe it was his expensive-looking suit, obviously quite a fine garment - at least before the rain had gotten to it - or maybe it was his long hair, loose, waterlogged and dragging down well below his shoulders, or perhaps it was- holy shit, was that Neji?!?! 

Moegi almost dropped her phone and umbrella in shock. Neji did not go through personal crises, and even if he did have one, he was not the type to figure it out by sitting out in the rain, ruining his expensive suit and likely setting himself up to catch a cold. Still, though she hadn’t recognized him at first because his hair was out and wet, instead of back like he normally wore it, his stature and bearing, while currently slumped, were unmistakable. 

Just to make absolutely sure, however, Moegi took a few steps toward the young man who was perhaps Neji and called out uncertainly, “Neji? Is that you?” 

The young man jerked his head upright at the sound of his name as if someone had just dropped an ice cube down the back of his suit, giving Moegi a good look at his face. It was obviously Neji, and from the panic in his eyes and the frantic shake of his head back and forth, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice that called out to him, he had not recognized her voice and didn’t want anyone to see him like this. Taking pity on him, Moegi stepped closer, and as soon as Neji’s eyes lighted in her, he relaxed. Interesting. So it wasn’t her he was afraid of finding him. But that only beget the question: who was it that he was afraid of seeing him like this? 

“Moegi?” He asked, surprise clearly written on his face and in his voice. “What are… what are you doing here?” 

Stepping close enough that she could tilt her umbrella over Neji’s head and block any further rainfall, Moegi studied his face. It was hard to tell with the damp tracks of raindrops on his cheeks, but she thought that he had been crying. “I could ask you the same thing! My God, Neji, it’s raining buckets out here! Where is your umbrella? Or at least your raincoat?” 

Neji averted his eyes, and Moegi’s instantly narrowed; he hadn’t even spoken yet, and she could already tell that he was hiding something. “I… forgot them. Besides, I was having a nice walk in the rain.” 

“In a suit?” Moegi shot back, and Neji looked down at himself as if surprised to discover the clothes he had on were ruined by exposure to the rain. “I’m not stupid enough to fall for that, Neji. I know you. Now, tell me what’s bothering you before I have to break out the threats.” 

“There’s nothing bothering me,” Neji sighed, standing up next to Moegi and shoving his hands into soaked pants pockets. “I’m fine, Moegi. I just needed to clear my head.” 

“And that, in and of itself, is a huge problem for someone like you.” Moegi seized Neji’s arm in a vice grip, keeping him from pulling out from under the umbrella. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere nice and warm so you won’t catch your death of cold, and then you can tell Big Sister Moegi about all your troubles.” 

Neji gave her a withering look as he tried, and failed, to escape her grasp. “Being chilly is not going to give me a cold. Bacteria cause colds, not being out in the rain. And you aren’t my big sister.” 

But Moegi ignored his glare and started dragging him down the street, despite his complaints. “And being cold lowers the ability your body’s immune system to perform its job, thus making you more susceptible to bacterial infections like colds. I think. Regardless, let’s get you warmed up. Hypothermia  _ is  _ something you can catch from being out too long in the cold and damp. And everyone needs a big sister once in a while to rub their back when they cry.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

They ended up in a nearby cafe, the kind of small operation that kicked itself for not being Starbucks while having opened only three blocks away from the original store and been around for five years before that uppity chain had even formed. But they weren’t jealous, oh, no, they were fine staying as the small store they had always been. It was much less work than managing a million stupid stores that all sold the same thing, and all the locals knew they had better coffee anyways. And cuter wait staff. And that was all that mattered. 

Neji took off his jacket when they sat down, draping over the back of his chair where it sat and dripped, creating a puddle that a nearby waitress regarded with a mixture of disgust and resignation. Moegi had to shake her head at the sight of his high-collared shirt, as completely soaked at his jacket had been, and wondered how long he had been standing in the rain to allow for than much water to have been absorbed by his person. 

When she asked as much, Neji just shrugged, asking in turn what time it was. 

“Close to twelve forty,” she replied with narrowed eyes. 

“Then almost two hours.” 

“Two hours?!” Moegi was aghast. “Sweet Jesus, you’re lucky you haven’t started shaking yet! Two coffees, please,” she directed at the waitress who had been previously casting harsh glances at the puddle forming beneath Neji’s chair. 

Whipping into professional mode, the waitress flashed them a blinding smile and flipped her notebook open, pencil at the ready. “Cream and sugar? And can I interest you in one of our fresh baked goods?” 

“We’re good with just the coffees, thanks,” Moegi answered for them both. “And I’ll have three sugars, and he’ll have two sugars and-” 

“Actually,” Neji interrupted, “I’d like it black, please.” 

Moegi had to check to make sure her mouth wasn’t hanging open after Neji cut her off. “Neji, you hate black coffee.” 

“I know.” He flashed her a wan smile, then turned back to the waitress. “Black, please.” 

“Alright then.” Through clearly surprised by the exchange, the waitress refused to allow her professionalism suffer, and she closed her little notebook with a snap. “Your coffee will be out in a few minutes.” 

Moegi watched Neji’s eyes trace the path taken by the waitress as she left their table, his shoulders slouching from the squared set he had forced them into when they’d entered the cafe to a slump. When she disappeared behind the counter, he let his head fall into his hands, his damp hair sliding forward in uneven clumps to hide his face from her view. Biting her lip, Moegi reached forward and laid a hand on one of Neji’s shoulders. He stiffened under her touch, and she felt that he was trembling, but she didn’t think it was from cold. 

“Okay, Neji, now you’re scaring me. What’s wrong? Did something happen?” 

A hoarse chuckle floated up to answer her question, the sound muffled by his hands. With a frown, Moegi squeezed his shoulder harder. 

“Neji, you know I care about you. You’re one of my best friends, and I know for a fact that I’m one of your only friends. I’ll listen to whatever you have to say without judgement. If you can’t open up to me, who else could you talk to?” 

Again, no answer was forthcoming, even when Moegi waited for almost fifteen full seconds, and she was about to try one more time when she felt his shoulder spasm under her touch and heard the muffled sound of a choked sob. 

Instantly, she was out of her seat and on the other side of the table, tearing Neji’s hands away from his face. He turned away as soon as he knew what she was up to, but it was too late and she had already seen his tear-stained face and red eyes. For a second, Moegi was frozen, unsure what to do; she’d never seen Neji, easily the most confident person she’d ever met, looking so broken. Then his hand came up to cover his mouth as hunched over, the sound of his sobs like the breaking of a heart, and she unfroze, wrapping him in a warm hug. 

The embrace was a little awkward, since Neji was sitting in his chair and Moegi was standing, but she made it work, throwing her arms about his shoulders and burying his face in her torso. He stiffened at the contact at first, but after a few moments he sank into into her embrace, shifting his arms to wrap around her waist and crying into her shirtfront. Gently rubbing circles on his upper back with the heel of her palm, Moegi pressed her face into the top of his damp hair and whispered to him of everything and nothing at once, knowing it was her voice and not her words that mattered. The few other patrons of the little coffee shop gave them strange looks, but she sent glares at them that made them drop their gazes. She was silently glad that this was one of those cafes that saw most of their business in the morning hours, and that it was almost deserted now. 

Eventually, Neji’s tears dried themselves up, and he pushed himself away from Moegi with a shaky breath. She allowed the distance between them, but still kept hold of Neji’s shoulders as he tried to smile in her direction, but really only succeeded in forcing a grimace. 

“S-sorry. You shouldn’t have to see me being so w-weak.” 

Good Lord, he was even stuttering like his cousin. Tucking a stray clump of damp hair behind his ear and tutting gently, Moegi gave him a warm, genuine smile. “That’s what I’m here for. You ready to talk about it now?” 

Neji’s face closed off again at the words, hesitation clear on his features. Knowing that forcing him would do more harm than good, Moegi settled in to wait, resolved to hear him let out whatever was bothering him before she let him go. 

“Um, excuse me?” 

Immediately forgetting her promise, Moegi dropped her hold on Neji’s shoulders and sprang away, as if she’d been caught doing something naughty. Of course, then her face flamed because now the waitress, who’d returned with the two cups of coffee they’d ordered would think they  _ had _ been doing something naughty even if they hadn’t. 

True to her prediction, the waitress’s cheeks darkened to a hue matching Moegi’s own, and she held the two cups of coffee aloft, as if needing their assurance to explain her presence. “Your c-coffee?” 

“Ah, y-yes,” she stuttered, quickly retaking her seat, happy to see a trace of amusement cross Neji’s features, despite what had caused it. “Thank you.” 

Gathering the shreds of her professionality around herself, the waitress set the cups of coffee down in front of the pair. “Three sugars for the lady, and black for the gentleman. Are sure there isn’t anything else I can get for you?” 

“No, we’re fine,” Moegi managed through her embarrassment, and the waitress nodded before turning and leaving to check in on an older man at a nearby table. 

Again, Neji’s eyes traced her path as she left, but this time he just looked down into the depths of his coffee when she was out of hearing. “Are you going to tell me what  _ that _ was about?” 

“Oh, come on, she was looking at us weird!” Moegi hissed, picking up her cup of coffee to hide her distress. “You saw it! She’s probably thinking something weird right now, like we’re dating and I brought you here to dump you or something!” 

Neji’s gaze darkened. “Or something,” he agreed, picking up his own cup of coffee and taking a sip. His face instantly transformed into a grimace when the liquid hit his tongue, and it he looked like he wanted to spit it out instead of swallowing. “That is absolutely revolting.” 

“I warned you,” Moegi said sternly, raising her own cup to her lips and taking a sip. The warm liquid sent rays of heat throughout her body from her stomach, chasing away the chill that had permeated her limbs from the rain. Across the table, Neji took another sip, pushing the liquid down his throat with a look of revulsion, but Moegi noticed that his hands were no longer shaking and he looked warmer. 

“So, now that you’re feeling better, are you ready to tell me what that was all about?” 

Neji gave a gentle snort into his cup of coffee. “What makes you think I’m feeling better?” 

“Absence of tears, and you managed to complain about the coffee.” Settling her cup back down in its saucer, Moegi steepled her hands and fixed Neji with an immovable stare. “I know you’re a private person, Neji, and there’s a lot of things about your family you don’t feel comfortable discussing in front of us, but just bottling everything up won’t solve this problem.” 

“That’s assuming there is a problem,” Neji scowled into his cup of black coffee like it had personally offended him, swirling the dark liquid in its container. 

“Don’t play dumb with me, Neji. I have never seen you as bad off as you are right now. So you either buck up and tell me, or I’ll be forced to break out the blackmail material.” 

Neji took another swig of his black coffee, grimacing less this time. “Like you have anything on me.” 

“Oh, really?” Moegi reached into her purse and retrieved her phone, waving it in his face. “Don’t you remember the incident with that class we all took together a few years ago? The dance class?” 

The cup of coffee crashed back down into its saucer, and Neji’s face drained of all color. “I thought you deleted that! I told you to delete it!” 

“Like I would ever delete something like that,” Moegi scoffed. “It’s practically the only thing we have on you! And besides, it's funny. Sometimes I watch it when I need a laugh.” 

“F-funny?” Neji spluttered. “That was the single most humiliating experience of my life!” 

“Yeah, funny,” Moegi agreed amicably. “And by the way, Udon and Konohamaru have a copy of it as well, so even if I deleted it, it would still exist. So good luck making it disappear, because there’s no way we’re  _ ever _ letting that one go.” 

Letting out a groan of defeat, Neji dropped his head into his hands once more. This time, however, Moegi was sure he wasn’t crying, and after a few seconds, muffle words floated out to reach her ears. 

“You know that I don’t like to talk about my family. They’re secretive. I could get in trouble for much more than this.” 

“Then give me a hypothetical,” Moegi suggested. “Like, if they ordered you to assassinate the President of the United States, you could just say they’d called a hit on someone.” 

When Neji pulled his head out of his hands, the glare he gave Moegi could only be described as withering. “We are  _ not _ a family of assassins.” 

She shrugged in response. “I didn’t say you were- though you are secretive enough to be one. I said hypotheticals, didn’t I?” 

“Hmph.” Neji grunted, then grabbed his coffee and took another gulp, this time with minimal wincing at the flavor. After that, he kept the cup close to his face, swirling the dark liquid like it held the answers to the universe. Moegi also retrieved her cup and took another sip, savoring the sweet bitterness and the steam rising up into her face, content to let him work out exactly how much he wanted to tell her. 

Almost two minutes later, Neji finally sat his cup back down and fixed his gaze on Moegi. “Okay. Okay, I’ll tell you. But you can’t tell anyone else.” 

“I thought that would go without saying,” Moegi said quietly. 

But even that wasn’t enough for Neji, who reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Promise me, Moegi. Promise that you won’t tell a soul what I’m about to tell you. Even-” He broke off with a difficult swallow, then forged ahead again. “ _ Especially _ Hinata. She can’t know anything that gets said here today. Can you promise me that?” 

Even Hinata?  _ Especially  _ Hinata? This was something so bad, he couldn’t even discuss it with a member of his own family, the girl he completely doted on? Carefully keeping her gaze locked with Neji’s, Moegi set her cup of coffee down and grabbed his hand with both of her own. 

“I promise, Neji. No one will ever hear a word from me.” 

“Good.” He nodded shakily several times to himself, then let his head tilt forward again, his long hair hiding his expression from her eyes. Moegi didn’t move, just waited for him to make the decision to speak, and after a few seconds he sighed and leaned back, tucking his hair behind his ears, but he still refused to meet her eyes. 

“You know how Konohamaru always makes jokes about my hair and how long it is, and how that must mean that I’m… that I’m…” He muttered almost under his breath, trailing off at the end as if unable to say the word that logically ended that sentence. 

The breath caught in Moegi’s throat, and she covered her mouth with a hand as she fought off her elation. “Neji, are you telling me…?” 

“I… kissed someone recently,” he admitted, a hint of a blush staining his cheekbones. One hand crept up to his collar, where it hid the tell-tale mark Moegi had already noticed that let her know he’d done a little bit more than kiss someone. “It was a man,” he added in a rush, as if getting the words out faster would lessen their impact. His blush intensified, and he flicked his eyes upwards to gauge her reaction. 

Moegi had to admit, this was not the conversation she thought she was about to have with Neji when she found him in the rain, and she was so happy that it was the case. With the way he’d been crying, she’d thought that maybe someone close to him had recently died, or his family had forced him to sign up for the army despite being a conscious objector or something. This was so, so much easier, and she couldn’t help the punch-drunk smile that spread across her face. 

“Neji, that’s fantastic! I’m so happy for you!” She gushed, leading dangerously quickly over the table to grab his hands in both of hers, which he let her do in surprise. “Tell me all about him! What’s his name? Is he cute? From around here? How old is he? Does he-” 

“Hold up, one at a time!” Neji held his hands up to stop the deluge of questions, which didn’t work well because her hands were attached to them. Then he paused, confusion etched on his features. “Wait, that’s all you have to say?” 

“Your sexuality has been a running joke for years, Neji. We were all honestly waiting for this.” 

“Oh.” He looked so mournful that Moegi couldn’t resist trying to cheer him up. 

“On the bright side, Udon now owes me and Konohamaru a hundred dollars. Each.” 

Shock etched itself on Neji’s features. “You took bets on my sexuality?!” 

“Yes, but that’s not the important part.” Moegi waved the concern away, then leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “You have to tell me all about him! I need deets, man!” 

“What the hell are ‘deets’?” 

“You know, details!” Grinning, Moegi raised one eyebrow suggestively. “Let’s start with the most important one: when do I get to meet him?” 

All the life that had been reinstated in Neji’s face over the course of the conversation drained away again, and he dropped his gaze into his cup of coffee. “You don’t.” 

Moegi blinked. “P-pardon?” 

“You can’t… meet him,” Neji clarified, avoiding her gaze. 

“Ever?” 

“Ever.” 

“Well, why not?!” Moegi exclaimed loudly enough to draw the attention of several nearby patrons. After smiling tightly at them until they looked away, she lowered her voice, she hissing, “Why not? Why can’t I meet him?” 

Raising his cup, Neji took a long draught of the coffee, then stared at the dregs that remained, swirling them pensively as if they held the right words for him to say. “His situation is… unique.” 

“Define ‘unique’,” Moegi ground out through gritted teeth. “Dammit Neji, I need gossip!” 

A small smile pulled up one of the corners of Neji’s mouth. “You need gossip like you need another head.” Then the smile dropped away as the lost, broken expression returned to his face. “Unique means he doesn’t have contact with many people. And can’t make any exceptions to that rule, even for you.” 

“Doesn’t have contact with people?” Moegi’s nose wrinkled up. “What does that mean? What, is he an invalid? On bedrest in a hospital somewhere? In  _ jail _ ?” Her eyes widened. “You don’t have him locked in your basement, do you?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Neji scoffed, some of the bleakness fading from his expression. “My apartment doesn’t have a basement.” 

“That’s exactly what a kidnapper would say!” She hissed right back. “Did you lock him in a closet, then? Counting on Stockholm’s syndrome to assure his affection for you?” 

“I did not-! Okay, I'm ending this discussion right now. There is no reasoning with you when you're like this.” 

“Poo.” Moegi pulled her best puppy dog eyes, but Neji glared right back and refused to budge, so she sighed and picked up her coffee cup again. “But I don’t understand, Neji. You’re not the kind of person to be thrown off by something like that. I mean, it’s you didn’t overtly chase women before, so it’s not like you’re losing a part of yourself. There’s got to be some other part to this. Please, Neji, tell me what’s happening to you.” 

Neji sighed again, tilting his head forward so his hair slid forward and hid his face. “I already told you I can’t say much more than I already have-” 

“Then give me a hypothetical!” She interrupted, dropping her coffee cup and reaching across the table to grab Neji’s hands. He jumped at the sudden contact, lifting his head to bear his tired gaze and jostling his coffee so some of it spilled over the side of the cup and onto the saucer, a few drops making their way to the tabletop. “Is your family homophobic? Are you afraid to tell them the truth about yourself? Afraid that they’ll reject you? The confident man I know wouldn’t be bothered by such things.” 

“Not… exactly.” Neji looked away, fixing his gaze on the dark spill across the tabletop instead. “My family is not… homophobic in the usual sense of the word. That is, they won’t take drastic measures - like disowning me completely - if I tell them… tell them I may be actively pursuing a relationship with… another man. They just…” He trailed off, and Moegi squeezed his hands tighter. 

“They just what, Neji?” 

“They don’t support relationships they haven’t condoned,” he burst out, though Moegi noticed his voice was quiet enough that it wouldn’t carry beyond their table. “And few make that cut, considering that to them, relationships must serve a purpose- mainly, furthering the next generation of the clan.” His tone was thick, as if sickened by the very words he uttered. 

Moegi’s eyes widened. “You mean…?” 

“Arranged marriages? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.” His hands trembled in hers. “And once they make a decision, they don’t go back on it lightly. No matter how hard you fight them, or for how long… no matter how many  _ years _ you’ve put into protesting their unjust rulings or how many arguments - valid, logical points!  - you make, they’re always there, ready to thrust my face back into the dirt the moment I make any headway!” 

Moegi noticed when Neji’s pronouns changed over from general to specific, but she didn’t call attention to it- mostly because she was too shocked to speak at all. An arranged marriage, in this day and age? Neji wasn’t kidding when he said his family was old-fashioned! Then something in his word choice caught her attention. While speaking thus far during the conversation, Neji had always spoken of the unknown people who held such unfathomable sway over him as his family, but when he’d spoken of the arranged marriage, he’d said “furthering the next generation of the clan”. Not his family, but his  _ clan _ . A strange word for such a modern setting. It brought to mind the far distant past before there were concrete nations and borders, when groups of nomads, a few loose families with intermingling bloodlines, would band together to travel. Their entire lives would take place within the confines of their clan, including… 

Including marriage. 

The air in the room felt suddenly too thick for Moegi to breathe. Was this what Neji was facing? Had she accidentally guessed the secret he had been hoping to keep, the thing he couldn’t say out loud for fear of punishment? 

“Neji…” She said quietly, her voice trembling slightly. “When you say your family arranges marriages, does that mean they arrange them… within the family?” 

Silence fell between them, hot and oppressive, seeming to block out all the other noises of the cafe, the low rumble of their neighbors, the tinkle of cups being set back down into saucers and the drip of percolating coffee. Neji didn’t answer Moegi’s question in words, but he didn’t need to; all the color drained from his face, leaving it an ashen shade of grey, his hand on the table shook so badly that it rattled his coffee cup, and all motion from his lungs ceased, telling her that her assumption had been correct. 

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “Neji…” She whispered, reaching out for him, but he brushed her off and stood up, his face still ashen. 

“I… I have to go now,” he muttered, his hands trembling as he tried to grab his jacket. They were shaking so badly that he almost dropped the sodden thing twice before he was able to get it up off the back of the chair. “I shouldn’t have said anything… anything at all… I can’t… can’t-” 

“Neji!” Moegi jumped up as well, catching his wrist as he tried to flee. “Don’t you dare leave like this! If something like that is really happening, you have to tell someone-” 

“Nothing like that is happening!” Neji shouted, drawing the attention of the entire cafe, which grew silent at his raised voice, the occupants turning their respective head to look at him in a mixture of surprise, annoyance and disapproval. “There is nothing going on! You’re wrong! Completely wrong!” 

“Neji-!” 

“You have no right to stick your nosey hide in where it isn’t wanted! No right!” 

“THE FUCK, NEJI!! HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT TO ME!?!?” 

“HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME??” 

“I’M YOUR  _ FRIEND _ , NEJI- I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU!” 

“WELL, I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP! LEAVE ME ALONE!” 

“Excuse me, sir…?” The waitress who had served them was back, her features pinched with worry. “You’re disturbing our other customers. If you could please calm down-” 

“Calm down?  _ Calm down?! _ Oh, I’ll  _ calm down _ alright!” Neji screamed out his maniacal laughter, swiping his arm across the table. The motion upset the cup that had formerly held his coffee and now held only the last cooling dregs, sending it crashing to the floor in a mess of shattered china and dark liquid. “Take your fucking coffee and your fucking  _ calm down _ and throw them where they belong!” 

“Neji!” Moegi reached out before she could think her actions through and slapped Neji across the face. 

His head snapped to the side from the force of the impact, and when he looked back at Moegi, a red mark in the shape of her hand was blossoming on his cheek. He looked angry and in pain, but the wild gleam in his eye had faded. Slowly, the life drained from his face again, taking with it the facade of anger that had obscured his features before and leaving nothing behind but the broken countenance of a boy much younger than he really was. 

His mouth flopped open for a moment as if he was going to offer some resistance, then Neji turned away and slid his sleeves into his jacket. The soaked fabric make the job harder than it would normally be, but he struggled through the difficulty, buttoning up his suit coat and tucking his tie down into it. He ended with a careful adjustment of his collar before turning back so Moegi could see his face. It was changed, cold and distantly professional, like she’d never seen it before, and suddenly it reminded her, more than anything else that had been said or done in the conversation thus far, that Neji lived in an entirely different world from her. 

His hard mask still in place, Neji inclined his head in the direction of the waitress. “I do apologize for the commotion I have caused you. I normally do not lose my temper so easily, but I have been… under duress as of late.” He reached into his pants pocket to draw out a wallet, then retrieved a few crisp, though slightly soggy, bills and handed them to her. “For the coffee for the lady and myself. Keep the change.” 

“But this is too much-” the waitress tried to protest, but Neji held up a hand to quiet her with a tight smile. 

“For the cup. I do not usually make a habit of breaking things that are not mine, and I’d prefer not to leave here indebted.” 

“Neji-” Moegi started, but Neji cut her off as well. 

Taking a deep breath, he said, “I apologize for my actions here today, Moegi. I was rude in the face of your kindness, and my cruel words were completely uncalled for. I can only hope this does not have a lasting impact on our friendship.” 

“Of… course not?” It was more of a question than a statement. Moegi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion; this wasn’t a side of Neji she’d ever seen before and it was starting to scare her more than even his tears had before. “Neji, are you sure you’re alright?” 

“No,” he answered with lowered eyes, almost too quiet for her to hear. “I’m not sure about anything right now.” Then he gave his head a single shake as if to clear his thoughts and raised his gaze again. “Your voice has helped me to somewhat see reason, however. But even so… I think it would have been better for both of us if we hadn’t come across one another today.” 

“But how can you say that?” Moegi gasped indignantly. “Neji, I thought were were friends!” 

“We are… which is why I regret you ever had to see me like this.” 

“Friends are supposed to be there to celebrate the best times and help during the hard times. I’m not some fairweather confidant who’ll run at the first sign of trouble, Neji.” 

“I know.” He started towards the door, then paused just as he passed her. “But unfortunately, this isn’t something you can help me with.” 

Then he was gone, hurrying with lengthy strides towards the door and disappearing through it. Moegi watched him make his way down the sidewalk through the large front window, his head drooped forward and his hands shoved deep in his pockets, not even trying to avoid the heavy rain. 

The voice of the waitress next to Moegi shocked her out of her thoughts. “Men in suits are always more trouble than they’re worth.” 

“I guess you’re right.” Moegi watched Neji disappear around the corner of a building a block away, then turned to the waitress with a sigh. “Sorry for the trouble. I’ll take the check now, please.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

By the time Neji got back to his apartment, the little he’d managed to warm up had been stolen from him by the chill rain again, and an unpleasant shiver was starting to pervade his body. As soon as the door was shut behind him, he ripped off his clothes down to his sodden underwear and left them in a soggy pile on the floor barely a few steps into the apartment, then closed all the blinds, turning away what little light was able to make it through the clouds. It was dark now, the apartment thick with shadows, but Neji found himself more comfortable in the dark than he ever had been with the lights on. 

The suit was likely ruined by the rain, and even if it wasn’t yet, it would be if Neji didn’t take care of it soon. However, he just couldn’t bring himself to pick up the pile of fabric, nor did he think he could even stand to feel it against his skin again, not after what had happened today when he’d been wearing it. So, he just left it there and went into the bathroom instead, where he turned on the shower as hot as it would go and, after getting in, scoured every inch of his flesh with soap until his skin was raw and smarting, as if he could wash away the memories of the meeting, his subsequent humiliation, and the failure that would dog his footsteps for the rest of his life. 

Hinata. 

How could he marry her? She was more than just  _ like _ a sister to him; she  _ was _ his baby sister! How could the elders not understand? What could they possibly hope to gain by pairing them up? Usually, matches were made to either give strong Hyuuga who were of low status a better standing in the clan or to place unruly youngsters who were seen as threats in a place where they could be better kept track of. Both Neji and Hinata, however, were already a part of the more elite branches of the family and, as such, in a place of almost constant surveillance, so there had to be some other reason the elders were so adamant on the marriage. Particularly his grandfather. 

_ Maybe he thinks no one else will have her, _ Neji thought despondently, then his eyes widened when he realized what he’d just thought and ducked his face directly under the scalding spray. Hinata had her own set of problems, but she wasn’t an invalid. She wasn’t unwanted. 

When the boiling water had washed away all the suds that clung to his body, Neji leaned his forehead up against the shower wall and let the spray fall on his back, his hand resting on the knob that controlled the flow. He knew he should turn it off, that he shouldn’t be wasting water like this, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to. It was like he was waiting for something, but he didn’t know what it was he was waiting for. 

_ “Hello, Neji.”  _

A shiver went down Neji’s spine at the memory of the words spoken in a dark voice, and though he knew he was alone and it was only his mind playing tricks on him, he thought he could feel a phantom hand trailing from his shoulder down to his backside. 

_ “Nice ass, by the way.” _

Neji bit his lip to stop the wave of heat flowing through his body that had nothing to do with the shower and twisted the knob, slowing the water down to a trickle that dripped itself out in a few seconds. He stood there listening to the steady drip of water from the knob down to the drain for almost a minute before a shiver scuttled down his spine, propelling him out of the shower and into a warm robe. 

The empty mirror seemed to haunt Neji as he brushed out his hair in front of it, mocking him with a scene devoid of any reflections except his own, though he knew that even if his desired company was there, he wouldn’t be able to see his reflection. Purposefully, he turned his back on the mirror, finished brushing his hair, and walked out of the bathroom. His experiences that afternoon had proven to him once and for all that he didn’t have the time nor the freedom to play games with someone who didn’t fit into his pre-planned Hyuuga life. However much he might want him to. 

The pile of clothing he'd left on the floor caught his eye as he made his way back to the front part of his apartment, and Neji felt a hot flash of irritation rush beneath his skin. Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed the sopping wet pile and hurled the whole lot of it in the trash can. Then he couldn't stand the sight of the trash can, so he yanked the bag out, tied it up, and, after throwing on a pair of slippers, stalked out the front door of his apartment, descended the stairs, and hurled it in the dumpster. 

There. He owned several suits anyways, and he could always buy another one if the need arose. It wasn’t like he was destitute. 

As soon as the bag was gone, Neji felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. He quickly made his way back to his apartment and shut the door behind him, locking himself once more in the semi-dark realm of shadow. There was a wet spot where he'd left his suit on the floor, and he threw the closest thing he could find - which turned out to be a dish towel - on it so it wouldn’t cause water damage to the boards. It lay in a crumpled heap, soaking up the dampness without any assistance. Neji started to reach down to pick it up again, but somewhere along the way he found himself on the floor as well, his back pressed up against his apartment door and his knees curled up to his chest. 

His head fell forward, his forehead resting against his knees. His heart wanted to cry again, but he felt wrung out from all the crying he’d already done that day, as if he had no more tears left to give. Like a curtain, his hair fell about his face, blocking out the outside world and giving him a private place in which he could mourn- what? The loss of his future? His sister? A few of the words he’d spoken to Moegi earlier rushed through his mind. 

_ “My family is not… homophobic in the usual sense of the word. That is, they won’t take drastic measures - like disowning me completely -  if I tell them… tell them I may be actively pursuing a relationship with… another man. They just… they don’t support relationships they haven’t condoned.” _

Why had he said any of that? Neji drew his arms tighter about his knees. He’d known all along that a permanent relationship between someone like him and someone like Shikamaru wasn’t possible- even ignoring the fact that they lived on completely different planes of existence, Neji would never be able to secure the blessing of his family and Shikamaru wouldn’t likely be content to watch Neji grow old and interact with the world when he himself was unable to. So why, then, did Neji feel like he’d just lost something he was just starting to treasure? 

Shikamaru would have probably figured it out already. But Shikamaru wasn’t there, and even if he was, he wasn’t the type to explain his thoughts. 

He might have stayed in that same spot, pondering those questions over and over, letting them run around the inside of his head like racehorses on an oval track in an endless race, had his phone not that moment begun to ring. 

For a moment, Neji almost didn’t recognize the sound. The ringtone was unfamiliar, alien even, like a foreign entity intruding upon his thoughts, and coldly meticulous, bringing to mind images of a clerk in an office with dull metal walls and flickering fluorescent bulbs overhead. Then it rang again, more insistently, and Neji finally recognized it for what it was: the landline installed in his kitchen expressly for the purpose of urgent calls for his job, not his cell phone, which is what he normally used for communication. It had to have been months since it had last rung. A wave of dread swept through Neji as he stared at the phone attached to his wall, his mind racing through every possibility he could think of; who could be contacting him, and why? Had the elders changed their mind and decided to punish him after all? 

Slowly, Neji rose from his seated position and made his way to the ringing telephone. Then, taking a deep breath in the hopes that it might steady his voice, he picked up the phone and held it close to his ear. 

“Seattle File Operator Neji Hyuuga speaking.” 

“Ah, yes, Neji,” a voice crackled through the phone. “This is Boston File Operator Iroha Hyuuga. I have a note I wish to discuss with you about the most recent monthly report I sent in.” 

“Of course. Just give me a minute to pull it up.” 

The request took Neji by surprise, but his nervousness quickly faded away. In addition to managing all the reports and sightings for the area he was in charge of - the better part of the states in the Pacific Northwest - as the File Operator in Seattle, the closest to the family headquarters, Neji also had the job of overseeing a monthly written report of the highlights of every File Operators’ work. It was uncommon for a File Operator to call and give a verbal note to accompany the written report, but not unprecedented. Neji slid the phone between his jaw and his shoulder, holding it it place as he walked over to his computer, then sat down and searched for the file on his computer. 

“Boston… Boston… the one you just sent me yesterday, correct?” 

“Yes, that is correct,” Iroha answered. “So you’ve read it already, then?” 

“Yes, I believe I filed it already. There was a special request in it, was there not? About one of your men needing a temporary replacement because he was in an accident… Ah, here it is: Boston, Iroha Hyuuga, sent yesterday.” Neji opened the file. “Yes, that’s the one I was thinking of. Hoheto Hyuuga, stationed in Connecticut, currently recovering in a Boston hospital from being caught in a burning building, suffering from minor burns and severe smoke inhalation. If you’re calling about that, I already put the request in, so you don’t have to worry. His replacement should be out there within a few days.” 

“Thank you, but that’s not why I’m calling. Well, it is about Hoheto, actually, but it’s not about his replacement.” Iroha paused for a moment, as if unsure how to continue. “He… well, Hoheto has been unconscious since the fire, and today he finally woke up.” 

“That must mean he’s on the road to recovery, then? Isn’t that good news?” 

“It is, but…” Again, Iroha paused, for longer this time, and when he started speaking again, his words were clunky and unsure. “Well, when he woke up… he started… started just  _ rambling _ , on and on and on, and the craziest stuff. We didn’t know what to make of it. Seems he’s convinced someone set that fire on purpose, to get rid of him.” 

“To get rid of him?” Neji frowned. This was indeed bad news warranting a call; their family had been targeted before by radical groups who were convinced they were evil because of their ability to see ghosts, or they were demons for the same reason, and it was a delicate situation that always had to be dealt with swiftly and precisely to avoid the idea spreading and their privacy being compromised. “Another self-righteous hate group, you think?” 

“That’s what I thought at first as well, but Hoheto told a different story. He was convinced it was a ghost who set the fire.” 

Neji froze in the act of clicking on a link on his computer, his hand clenching around his mouse with white-knuckled fervor as the image of a blond man… ghost…  _ thing _ with burning hands flashed through his mind’s eye. It couldn’t be, could it? They had escaped Konoha, but why would they resurface again so quickly, and so near to where they had last been spotted? It was complete folly; since they had recognized both Sasuke and Neji as being Uchiha and Hyuuga respectively, they had to know the prowess of both families and how they could easily take their little group down if they wanted to. So it couldn’t be them. Right? 

Neji’s vain hopes were dashed by Iroha’s next words. “And not just any ghost, either; no, he says it was a wraith. What do you make of that, huh, Neji?” 

But Neji couldn’t bring himself to answer; no, he couldn’t even bring himself to breathe. The coincidence was too great now. It  _ had  _ to be them, or at least the pyrokinetic one. There was always the chance that they had split up to better protect themselves. But wraiths were social creatures, unlike most other kinds of ghosts; they tended to cluster together and form groups, and when they did, they didn’t often separate until they were torn from this world a second time. 

“…Neji? Neji! Can you hear me?” 

With a start, Neji realized that Iroha had been speaking into his ear for some time while he’d been lost in thought, and he hadn’t heard any of it. Clearing his throat, he deliberately forced his hand to loosen its grip on his computer mouse as he answered the increasingly concerned man on the other end of the phone line. 

“Yes, I can hear you, Iroha. Sorry about that. I just… remembered something that might have something to do with this, is all.” 

“You did?” Relief, and then increasing worry, was evident in Iroha’s tone. “You think there’s a pattern? Could this become a problem?” 

“I’m not sure…” Neji’s gaze roved over his computer screen, looking through a list of files for a pattern. “But it’s a possibility. Did he say anything else?” 

“Not much else. After I got that much out of him, he just kept screaming ‘they’re coming, they’re coming’ over and over again and wouldn’t answer any of my questions. He lost consciousness again shortly after.” 

“You sure that’s all he said?” Neji pressed. “No indication as to who the ‘they’ might have referred to? Anything could be important, anything at all, no matter how inconsequential it may seem.” 

“No, I don’t think so…” Iroha started, and Neji felt mixed disappointment and relief flow through him, which was immediately quenched by the man’s next words. “Oh, yeah, actually there was something else! It was right before he started screaming and lost consciousness again. He was trying to remember something and then he muttered a word, and that seemed to set him off.” 

“Do you remember what the word was?” Neji asked with equal parts eagerness and trepidation. 

“It was a strange word, one I’ve never heard before, so I’m not sure if I remember it exactly, but I’d definitely recognize it if I heard it again. It was aka- something, maybe… akason? No, that’s not right… akaski sounds a little bit better, but that’s not it either… aka… aka-” 

“Akatsuki?” Neji supplied, a cold hand gripping his heart. “Was it ‘Akatsuki’?” 

“You know,” Iroha said slowly, “that actually sounds right. How did you know?” 

Neji felt his jaw freeze in fear for a few seconds before he was finally able to speak again. “I’m sorry, Iroha, but I’m going to have to let you go now. I believe I just found the pattern.” 

“You found a pattern? What is it?! What’s going on, Ne-?” 

_ Click _ . Neji hung up the phone before Iroha could finish getting out his name. Something about this report bothered him now that his attention had been brought to it, something that he would have probably noticed by now if his mind had been on his job and not on other things. He scanned the rest of the report until he found the part he was looking for. 

Two more arson cases unsolved by the police, reported in because the circumstances were unclear enough that spectral animosities could have been involved, another one in Connecticut and one in southwestern Massachusetts. Flipping to another report sent in by the File Operator for the area from New England to Ohio, Neji scrolled down until he found five more suspicious arson cases that had been reported in, two in New York, two in eastern Pennsylvania, and one in New Jersey. 

They were all too close to be a coincidence. Neji jumped up from his computer and rummaged through a set of drawers until he found a map of the United States, which he brought back to his computer desk and marked down the locations of the fires. When he finished, he drew a line connecting all of them, the shape of which roughly resembled a semicircle, and would likely have been a full circle if the space the other half rested in hadn’t been covered in water. 

Neji swore aloud when he saw the name of the city sitting roughly in the center of the semicircle he had drawn. Of course. Of course it was New York City. It was always New York City. 

_ Well _ , he reasoned as he reached for his cell phone, selected a contact, and held it up to his ear to hear it ring,  _ at least having something to fix takes my mind off things and I won’t be moping around here.  _

“Neji?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded surprised when he picked up. “What’s up? Is there a problem?” 

“Unfortunately, Sasuke, there is. We may have fucked up big time, and now we need to clean it up before someone else puts any of it together. How soon can you be in New York City?” 

 

⚞⚟

 

“God, that was exhausting,” Kisame moaned into his pillow several hours later, having flopped onto his bed without any preamble. 

His lips pulling up into an indulgent smile, Itachi sat down next to him and brushed his fingers through his short hair. “You did well.” 

“I can’t believe we got them to agree to the name change!” He shook his head against the pillow, his words muffled by its softness. “With the amount of time it took going around and around, I thought they would never stop arguing.” 

“Miru was a very helpful voice,” Itachi mused. “You should thank her soon. I think she’s quickly becoming our best ally here.” 

“And Fuguki?” 

“Well… at least he’s not deliberately trying to sabotage us anymore,” Itachi admitted, “though I doubt he’s fully satisfied. He definitely wanted the position as Boss, and it’s chafing him to submit to someone he doesn’t view as worthy. After today, though, I doubt he’ll be so open about any insubordination, so we should be safe. Or at least safer.” 

“That’s what I like to hear.” Kisame pushed himself out of his pillow so he could look at Itachi’s face. “So did you pick up any more useful tidbits today?” 

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.” Itachi smirked and drew himself up taller. “Miru told me today that Raiga can often be unpredictable and explosive, and the only person who can calm him down when he gets like that is a young boy named Ranmaru who is currently in the hospital with bad injuries. If you visit him there, you’ll likely win points with Raiga, and if I remember correctly, there’s another member there as well, Juzu, who you might also want to consider visiting. It will show your dedication to the individual members of the group, if nothing else.” 

“Visit the members in the hospital- got it. I’ll put it on the schedule for tomorrow if we have time. Anything else?” 

“Hmm… nope, I think that’s it.” A yawn suddenly split Itachi’s face open, and he stood up from Kisame’s bed. “I think I should probably turn in. It’s been a long evening. ‘Night, Kisame.” 

After the first night, Itachi had been moved to a room that conjoined Kisame’s by the walk-in closet, so Kisame could check up on him without needing to go into the hallway if needed. At least, that was the excuse they had given. With a sigh, Itachi removed the holster and gun from his belt and laid it on Kisame’s dresser, then turned to go, but was stopped by a hand fastening around his wrist. 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Kisame growled, a hint of seductiveness in his voice that made Itachi’s knees instantly weak. 

“To bed,” he replied with a hint of a smile, already having figured out where this was going and decided to play along. 

“Exactly.” Kisame gave a sharp tug and pulled Itachi down onto his bed, curling one arm around him. “You know,” he murmured in Itachi’s ear, the warmth of his breath tickling against his neck, “I said I wouldn’t let you say it and I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything that might affect your decision, but all I could think when you were taking charge back there was that you looked  _ so hot _ \- especially with that gun at your waist.” 

“Oh,  _ really _ ?” Itachi couldn’t hide his pleased grin, and he broke from Kisame’s embrace to straddle his hips and pin his shoulders against the mattress with his hands. “So you like it when I’m a little bit of a spitfire, do you?” 

“Mmm, yeah…” Kisame shifted under Itachi and folded his hands behind his head to give him better access. “I liked that side of you. You should act like that more often.” 

“Well, if it leads to this…” Itachi grasped Kisame’s cheeks and used them as a guide to find his lips, kissing him gently before pulling back with a wicked grin. “I definitely will.” 

  
  



	9. A Change of Scenery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neji heads out to confront the Akatsuki a final time with Sasuke in tow.

⚞⚟

 

“I still don't think this is any better of an idea than I did last time,” Kisame hissed into Itachi’s ear as they stood in front of the door to the late Previous Boss’s room. 

Itachi silently agreed with him, but didn't make the same observation out loud. “It has to be done, Kisame. For our protection… and for his as well.” 

“For  _ him? _ ” Kisame gave a disparaging snort. “After what that old man did to me he's lucky I didn't pull his plug myself. And now you're telling me I need to protect his  _ ghost? _ No way. I ain't doing it.” 

“You said ‘ain't’,” Itachi said with a smile. 

“I did, didn't I?” Kisame sounded pleased with himself. “Do I sound like a proper uneducated criminal now?” 

“Not quite, but you're getting there.” The smile faded from Itachi’s face. “It's not about protecting him in the sense you might of someone still alive, but more… protecting him from himself, and in doing so, protecting ourselves. New ghosts are an awful lot like babies; they take a long time to grow up enough to communicate, or even take on a human-like appearance.” 

“So, right now, my father's ghost is like… a baby?” Kisame asked uncertainly. 

“A little bit older. A toddler, perhaps, in the midst of his terrible twos. That's why we need to stop him now, because three-year-olds have a tendency to pitch nasty tantrums, and the same is true for ghosts.” 

“And these…  _ tantrums _ … are they dangerous?” 

“Only if you're in the right place at the extraordinarily wrong time, or the deceased has a pre-existing grudge against you.” Itachi squared his shoulders confidently, despite the nervous tension in his stomach that made him feel like he needed to vomit again. “So we should be fine.” 

“ _ Should be _ ?” Kisame stressed. “And why am I coming with you this time, anyway? Didn't you threaten me under pain of death last time to not open the door despite anything I heard or something like that?” 

“Yes, I did say something to that effect,” Itachi admitted, “but I've changed my mind. I want you there.” 

“But why?” 

But Itachi brushed the words off, reaching blindly for the door handle. “Just a hunch. Come on; we don't have all night. If Miru catches us here a second time, she's bound to get even more suspicious than she already is.” 

“I suppose you're right,” Kisame said with a sigh. “It's to your right, about three inches.” 

“Thank you.” Itachi fixed his position according to the calibration Kisame had given him and quickly found the door handle. His hand rested on it for a moment, his body unable to perform the necessary actions to open it even though his brain had already issued the command. Then a much larger hand settled over his, jumping him at first but soon relaxing him with its gentle warmth. 

“On three,” Kisame said quietly next to his ear, and Itachi nodded back. 

“One… two… three.” 

On three, their hands pressed down together and opened the door. It swung outward, and Kisame pulled Itachi out of the way with a strong arm looped around his waist. He was about to protest that he didn't need Kisame’s help, but decided against it when he realized that his hands were shaking. 

The air inside the room was inexplicably colder than the air in the hallway, and Itachi felt Kisame shiver next to him. 

“Damn, there really is something here,” he muttered, the words tickling the back of Itachi’s neck. “I mean… I believed it, but…” 

“But hearing about something and seeing it for yourself are two very different things,” Itachi finished for him, feeling the appreciate nod Kisame gave him at the words. 

“Yes, exactly.” He drew in a deep breath. “I don't know what I could possibly do to help you in this, but… let's do this.” 

“Agreed.” Itachi instinctively reached down and wove his fingers through Kisame’s larger ones as he cautiously slipped one foot forwards so as to not disturb the line of salt he had placed around the room. He couldn't feel the pre-wraith inside the room stirring, but that didn't mean it wasn't watching them. “Watch the line of salt when you go through the door.” 

“I have a better idea.” Without giving Itachi any warning as to his plan, Kisame swept him up in his arms and crossed the line of salt spanning the threshold without disturbing it, then just as quickly dropped him on his feet again and reached behind them to shut the door, all before Itachi could make even a peep of protest. 

“Kisame!” He hissed into the unearthly silence of the room as soon as he found his voice again. “You didn't…! I don't need…!” 

“You just concentrate on doing your job, Itachi,” Kisame said with a pat on the back that almost sent Itachi sprawling, “and let me do the rest. Fair?” 

Grudgingly, Itachi admitted, “Fair.” Then he straightened his back as if he wasn't feeling spiders crawl down his spine in an endless parade and lifted his chin. “Do you see where I dropped the knife?” 

“Yeah, it’s right here.” 

Itachi heard Kisame shuffling forward, then bending down to retrieve the blade. As he did, Itachi felt a wave of dark energy roll over the room and turn his stomach, and he hastily beckoned Kisame back. 

“Quick, give me the knife, and get behind me!” 

Hurrying back, Kisame did as he was bid and ducked behind Itachi’s small back as he held the knife out in front of them to ward off the malicious aura now slowly crawling towards them. The point wavered in the air as Itachi’s arms shook harder than picture frames propped up on a desk in an earthquake, threatening to fall like those same frames in an earthquake as well. Again, memories of desolate abandoned warehouses and seething, slickly green light poured into Itachi's mind, and his breathing grew louder and more rapid until a hand came down on his shoulder, freezing his entire body in place- which, at least, stopped his limbs from trembling. 

“Itachi!? What's going on? I- I can't see!” 

The words jolted Itachi enough to come to his senses, and he sucked in a deep breath, jump-starting the rhythms of his body again. “Did the lights go out?” 

“The switch is still on, but it's like the bulb broke. What's happening? Are we… are we in trouble?” 

_ Not yet,  _ Itachi wanted to say back, but he just gripped the hilt of the knife tighter to stop its wavering and took a step toward the center of the room. If the ghost could now affect the physical realm, even with such a tiny thing as dimming a bulb, it meant he was getting stronger. 

“Show yourself!” He snapped, and felt the ball of energy recoil at his demand. Behind him, Kisame shivered, and Itachi suddenly felt a wave of warmth clutch at his heart. 

_ So this is how it feels to protect instead of be protected, _ he marveled, then squared his shoulders more securely when he felt tendrils of energy pouring out towards him again. 

“M… my… son…”

Those words came again, hoarse and gritty, and Itachi felt a flash of satisfaction when he realized his hunch had been correct. Twice now, the first words the ghost had spoken had been for Kisame, and Miru had said that he’d always believed that Kisame would return. He was likely still waiting. Perhaps, if he saw Kisame now, before he became a wraith, he might fade without progressing any further. 

“My… son…. My son…” 

“He’s here,” Itachi announced, both to the wraith and the man behind him, and Kisame stiffened. 

“Itachi, what are you doing?” 

But Itachi didn’t respond; his attention was laser focused on the ghost in front of him, who was now roiling in confusion. 

“My son… is here…? But you… you aren’t him…. You  _ smell  _ like him though…” 

A heavy hand landed on Itachi’s shoulder. “Itachi, please tell me what’s going on!” 

“Just trust me,” he whispered low enough that the roiling mass of spectral energy in front of them wouldn’t hear. “Please?” 

After a few seconds, the hand slipped off Itachi’s shoulder. “Okay. Okay, I’ll trust you. Just please… tell me you know what you’re doing.” 

“None of us ever know what we’re doing, Kisame. That’s our biggest secret… sometimes everything works out, and sometimes people end up like me.” He shook his head. “But I have faced worse situations.” 

And not just the wraith who had driven him mad, though now that he had something else to focus on besides the swirling mass of energy, Itachi could feel the definitive differences between them, and its presence no longer made him want to scratch out his non-existent eyes again. As the rising young star of the Uchiha family that he had been, he had seen his fair share of action. 

Raising his voice again, Itachi addressed the pre-wraith. “Why do you want to see him?” 

The words rang in the air, but the ball of spectral energy didn’t react, moaning out again, “My son… he left me…” 

“Listen to me!” 

The shout shocked the roiling energy into stillness, then a single tendril of darkness made its way toward Itachi. “Who… who are… you?” 

“I said, why do you want to see him?” 

“Why… why…?” The energy tendril swirled directly in front of Itachi’s face, forming a spiral not unlike a question mark. “He’s… he’s my son…” 

“That didn’t answer my question!” 

“What… what other answer… is there?” 

Itachi sucked in a breath. If what he was saying was true, then it might simplify things quite a bit. “And what would you do if you could see him again? Right now?” 

“See… see him?” The ghost’s attention perked up, but glossed over the question. “He’s here? I can… see him?” 

“What would you do?” Itachi repeated, but louder, holding his knife higher when the tendril of energy came too close for comfort. 

“I just want to… just want to see his face one more time,” the gravely voice replied, this time in a whisper. “I always knew… he would return… one day.” 

_ Yes!  _ Itachi's hunch had been right. It was the simple love of a father for his son that caused this ghost to stay behind, nothing more. Of course, that didn't change the fact that he was a pre-wraith with tendencies leaning just a little bit too close for comfort toward the destructive, as he had already demonstrated with the light he'd dimmed. It just made him easier to convince to fade before it was too late. 

“Have your eyes adjusted yet?” He whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Kisame. 

“Just about,” came the reply. “There’s just barely enough light from the window to see by.” 

“Good.” Itachi took a deep breath. “Kisame, do you trust me?” 

“I thought we had already established that.” 

Itachi's grip tightened around the hilt of the silver blade. “Then I need you to do  _ exactly _ as I say. On a count of three, I'm going to step away from you so the ghost can see you. He should not attack you. Theoretically. However, if he does, I need you to stand completely still, no matter what you may see or hear happening. I can pinpoint his location and fight him off, but I can't do that and avoid you at the same time if you're moving. Understood?” 

There was a beat of shocked silence as Kisame processed his words, then a nervous swallow. “Un- understood.” 

“Good.” Itachi nodded, as if to convince himself of the validity of his plan, while the viscous lump of energy hovering in front of him ignored him and began to moan about his son again. “On three, then?” 

“W-wait!” A frantic hand suddenly clutched Itachi’s shoulder. “I- I don't think I can do this, Itachi. My father and I never got along very well; he probably doesn't even want to see me. Maybe we should just… try something else! Like using the knife or something.” 

“Using the knife?” Itachi brought the knife up and tapped the flat of the blade against the bandana wrapped around his empty eye sockets. In front of him, the pre-wraith flinched away from the movement of the silver, but otherwise made no sign that he was even paying attention to them. “Sure, I could use the knife. If you want to witness the second violent murder you father will have had to experience and damn him to an eternity of non-existence instead of going where he was supposed to go, which he would do if we could convince him to fade naturally… but the choice is yours. He is your father, after all.” 

“Violent… murder?” Kisame asked in a quiet voice. “Would it really feel like that to him?” 

“Let me just put it this way: from the outside, the forcible ‘death’, so to speak, of a ghost looks an awful lot like the event horizon of a black hole beyond which nothing can escape. It's not pretty, believe me.” 

“That's… awful.” 

“Yes, it is.” Itach squared his shoulders. “So, are we doing this the diplomatic way, or the hard way?” 

Kisame remained silent for a moment before an almost-sigh leaked from his lips. “Diplomatic, I guess.” 

“On my count, then. One…”

“Two…” Kisame nervously echoed. 

“Three!” 

On the last count, Itachi ducked out of the way, leaving Kisame standing almost face to face - though he couldn't see him - with his father’s ghost. He held his breath, waiting for the pre-wraith to notice the “newcomer” to the room and react to him, but as the seconds ticked by, nothing happened except the continued rolling of energy in the center of the room and moans of, “My… son…” 

“Nothing's happening,” Kisame finally said into what was, for him, the silence of an empty room. 

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock!” Itachi hissed, making himself even smaller as he crouched down toward the floor. “Try to catch his attention! Wave your arms around, or yell or something!” 

“Wave my arms around- do I look like a suicidal idiot to you!?” But after a few seconds, Kisame did it anyway, raising his voice and waving at the ghost to catch its attention. “Hey, um… Dad? Is that you?” 

The ghost froze at the sound of Kisame's voice, then just as quickly began to move again, shattering and reforming a thousand times a second as it tried to process what the words meant. “D…Dad? Does that mean… my son is here? Does he… want to… see me?” 

“Tell him that it's really you,” Itachi quickly hissed out of the corner of his mouth. 

“It's really me, Dad,” Kisame dutifully responded, though he had no way of knowing the words that had been said. “It's… Kisame. I came home to see you again.” 

“Kisame!” The mounting boil of energy in the center of the room suddenly exploded, shattering a window Itachi hadn't known was there, then reformed just as quickly in a more organized shape, rushing towards Kisame. 

Acting on pure instinct, Itachi threw himself in between Kisame and the ghost rushing headlong in his direction, hauling up his silver blade in sweaty hands to act as a deterrent. The ghost managed to stop himself just before he ran into the knife point, though displeasure radiated from him at the action. 

“Why do you stand between myself and my son?” 

The spectral voice that rang through the room was no longer coarse and gravelly, but full and rich, like it had come from the throat of a man. Itachi felt a familiar quake of fear start to push its way up his spine at the sound; it was too familiar for his liking and brought up layers of painful memories he would rather leave buried. But he pushed it back down and squared his shoulders despite the tremors that plagued his arms. 

“What do you plan to do to him?” 

“I  _ plan _ ,” the ghost sneered, sounding exactly how Itachi pictured a mob Boss to sound, “to look at my estranged son, whom I haven't seen in over a decade, and then hug him. Do I have your permission to do so, little guard dog?” 

Itachi was starting to get sick of that particular insult. “Fine. But just so you know, I'm not leaving.” 

“Figures my son would pick up a little pet like you,” the ghost muttered under his breath, obviously not planning on Itachi hearing, then said, “Yes, I suppose you won't. Now may I see me son?  _ Please _ , if it's required?” 

“I  _ suppose _ you may,” Itachi snapped back waspishly. He wasn't angry at a dead person. Not at all. Completely calm. What was he doing again? 

Oh, right. Moving out of the way so the ghost could see Kisame, who had wisely kept his mouth shut throughout the conversation. Taking a deep breath, Itachi signaled to Kisame with a jerk of his head that he was going to move, then slowly stepped to the side again. The last thing that stayed between Kisame and his father's ghost was the blade of the silver knife, then Itachi drew that back too, leaving the way between them clear. 

“Kisame…” the ghost murmured almost reverently. “My son… you've come home…” 

The ghost moved forward slowly, as if unsteady on his feet, then suddenly closed the distance between himself and Kisame and enveloped him in a hug of spectral energy. 

Itachi heard the catch in Kisame’s voice when he felt it too; not that he would feel the energy in the same way as Itachi would, but he would definitely feel the hair-raising chill of being enveloped by something not supposed to exist in this world. 

“D-Dad!? Is that really you?” 

“Kisame,” the ghost murmured in a completely different tone from what he'd spoken to Itachi in. “You've finally come home! I waited for you for so long, but I always knew that you'd come back before I… before I…” his tone abruptly shifted, turning darker and more angry as his memories of his last moments alive were at last unearthed. “I… I died? I fucking  _ died!?  _ Of all the things to kill me, it was a fucking rat in the middle of the night?! I'm going to murder those fuckers!!” 

“Kisame, you need to back away right now!” Itachi ordered, stepping in closer with his knife, but this time the presence of the silver didn't act as a deterrent to the now-raving ghost. 

Kisame’s breaths started coming hard and fast. “I thought you said not to move!” 

“Change of plans! Get the hell out of there!” 

“But-” 

“MOVE!!”

That propelled Kisame out of the way and behind Itachi once more, but not for long, as the ghost became away of his son’s disappearance and started to emit a wave of red-hot anger. 

“WHY DO YOU TAKE HIM FROM ME?!?! ME, HIS OWN FATHER!?!? YOU’RE JUST LIKE THAT LITTLE BITCH OF A CHILD WHO TOOK HIM FROM ME THE FIRST TIME!!!” 

Itachi had had to face a lot of insults that day, and right then and there, he decided he couldn't take it anymore. “I AM NOT A LITTLE BITCH OF A CHILD!!” He raised the knife and prepared to launch himself at the ghost. “GO TO HELL, YOU STUPID FUCKING-” 

“Itachi!” Kisame caught Itachi around the waist, preventing him from taking a flying leap forward with the knife raised to stab. “Did he say that? Those exact words?” 

Itachi was so angry, it took a few seconds for the sound of Kisame’s voice to make it past the rushing of blood in his veins. “Wh… what?” 

“What you just said? The ‘little bitch of a child’? Did he say those exact words, in reference to someone taking me from him?” 

“I… yes?” 

“Then listen up, old man,” Kisame announced, turning approximately toward the form of the ghost. “That ‘little bitch of a child’? She was my sister. Your daughter, in case you need reminding. And yeah, I said was, because she's dead now, and has been for several years. You never even knew, did you? That your own daughter was dead because  _ you _ chased her away from home? Didn't think so.” 

Kisame's words must have struck home, because the ghost stopped his manic screaming and looked at them. “Button? Button is… dead?” 

“He's asking if Button is dead,” Itachi surreptitiously relayed. 

“You lost the right to call her that years ago,” Kisame said, his tone almost as cold as the unnatural chill that was starting to overtake the room. “She was  _ my  _ Button; she was  _ your  _ regret.” 

That stunned the ghost enough that he was silent for almost a minute, then he shook it off and started pushing waves of hatred off his body once more. “It doesn’t matter anymore. If she’s dead, she’s dead, and there’s nothing I can do about it. My purpose now is to find the fuckers who took a cheap shot at me in the dark and give them the end they deserve.” 

“But is that really the best plan?” Itachi interjected, taking Kisame's place on the argument train since he couldn’t hear what was being said. “Cheap revenge? Is that all you’re good for? Why don’t you go where you were supposed to go, and let us enact vengeance for you?” 

The ghost let out a hiss of displeasure. “Vengeance, revenge; what is the difference?!” 

“Let me explain it to you logically.” Itachi took both of his hands, one of them still holding the silver knife, and spread them apart, palm up. “Revenge is an empty hand, closing around a throat to squeeze the life out of it.” 

“That sounds perfect to me,” the ghost sneered, but Itachi shook his head. 

“Just keep listening. Now, revenge is your motive, and the extent of what you can accomplish. It is an emotion-based response, often without thought. Vengeance, on the other hand, is like this hand here, with the knife.” He raised it slightly for emphasis. “A blade can do much more damage than an empty hand, and it has much more potential in the kinds of pain it can inflict. Vengeance, as opposed to revenge, is cold and well thought out, delivering the maximum penance to those who have wronged you. While revenge feels good while you’re doing it, the vengeance you take will make you satisfied for the rest of your life.” 

“What are you saying?” The ghost asked suspiciously, his energy roiling around him in confused waves, as if it wasn’t sure whether it wanted to implode in on itself or explode and kill everyone within a mile radius. 

Itachi took a deep breath; he hoped this would work. “Let us take your vengeance for you. Let us track down the ones who killed you and make them pay. You can see them on the other side and get your revenge there, but let us take your vengeance here, in the realm of the living. As you so aptly put earlier, if you’re dead, you’re dead, and there’s nothing you or we can do about it. So let us do it for you.” 

“You think I’d leave so important a task to an unknown little pet like you?” The ghost sneered. 

“No,” Itachi admitted, “But would you leave it to your son?” 

Again the words, gave the ghost pause, and he turned as if to consider Kisame. “My son, my Kisame… would you really take my revenge for me? Would you finally take over your old man’s job so he can get some rest?” 

Again, Itachi quietly translated out of the corner of his mouth. “He wants to know if you would avenge him.” 

“Of course I would, Dad!” Kisame stepped out from behind Itachi to stand next to him, steel in his voice. “We may have had our differences, but we are family. I will find your killers and make them pay, I promise, and then take care of the family you left behind in my care. I swear it.” 

“Ah…” the ghost sighed, his energy starting to swirl in a gentler pattern now. “It’s been so long since you called our little group here a family… I’m so… happy…” 

The edges of the ghost’s energy started to flake away into nothingness, and Itachi felt a surge of relief go through his chest.  _ Yes! _ They had done it; they had convinced the pre-wraith to fade before it could wreak any havoc in world of the living! One more question occurred to him, however, and he stepped forward again. 

“Wait! Can you tell us anything that might help us find your killers?” 

“It was dark… I couldn’t see…” came the reply, becoming fainter with every word. “But I can tell you this much: It was Lock. Be wary of Lock. Their greed knows no bounds when it comes to our resources.” 

Itachi had to hide a sigh of exasperation; they already knew Lock was likely to have been behind the attack, at that they coveted the territory Kisame’s gang controlled. “Anything else? Anything at all?” 

“Just… one more… thing…” The ghost heaved a sigh. “The man who killed me… lives inside these walls. You have a traitor in your midst. Be careful. Trust… no one…”  

Then the sound of his voice faded along with the energy that was making the room feel oppressive, and it warmed up several degrees. Itachi felt Kisame flinch next to him, then bring a hand up to hide his eyes. 

“The light came back on. Does that mean… he’s gone?” 

“Yes, he’s gone now. He went where he was supposed to go.” 

“Ha.” Kisame snorted. “I know that line is supposed to make me feel better, but it's not like I ever really cared for my father in the first place. I’m glad he’s gone and I… don’t have to… deal with him… anymore…” 

Kisame’s voice broke, and Itachi reached up to wipe away the tears from his cheeks that he knew were falling, though he couldn’t see them. “It’s okay to miss him, Kisame.” 

“I hated him for so long!” The words exploded out of Kisame, along with a great deal of snot that Itachi dutifully wiped away with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. “I shouldn’t be sad that he’s gone! I should be happy that… I … I…” 

“Kisame.” Itachi reached up and wrapped his arms around his neck. “You don’t have to be afraid to cry. He was your father.” 

As if that opened up the floodgates of a dam, tears poured from Kisame’s eyes and he sobbed into Itachi, clutching him to his massive torso. The embrace was too tight to be comfortable, but Itachi simply bore it, patting Kisame on the back and whispering soothing words in his ear as he sobbed himself out. After he was spent and nothing else would come, he loosened his grip, allowing Itachi the air to breathe properly for the first time in almost seven minutes. 

“Thank you for that,” he said gruffly, as if it could disguise the tears still lingering in his voice, which of course it didn’t. 

“Don’t mention it,” Itachi relied, though his voice was a little higher pitched than normal. He rubbed his sore ribs and pushed his shoulders back to minimize the effect of the bone-crushing hug. “You good now?” 

“Yeah, I’m good. I just needed… well, I guess I was surprised that I actually got the chance to say goodbye. I wasn’t expecting it, and it kind of… bowled me over.” 

“I’ve seen worse reactions; don’t worry,” Itachi murmured. He held out the silver blade to Kisame, hilt first. “Here; you can have this back. Hopefully I won’t need it again.” 

“Here’s to that.” Kisame took the blade and tucked it away somewhere, probably in a belt loop. “So, that’s it? Do we have to do anything else? Spectral decontamination or something?” 

“No, but we  _ do _ have to take care of our own mess.” Itachi jerked his head at the ring of salt that lined the room. “Go get a broom. We need to sweep this up before anyone else finds it.” 

“ _ Sweep? _ ” Kisame stood aghast. “We have to do  _ chores _ ? Can’t I just like, tell the cleaning lady to do it?” 

Itachi placed a hand in the center of Kisame’s chest and pushed. “Nope, we need to clean it ourselves. We don’t want anyone else getting suspicious. Come on, scat. Get me a broom.” 

“I don’t suppose you’re going to be doing any of this sweeping, now are you?” Kisame sighed as he moved to the door. 

“Of course not. I’m blind, remember? We want this floor to be actually  _ clean _ . Now skedaddle. I’ll be waiting until you get back.” 

“Of course you will be,” Kisame sighed as he opened the door and slipped through, but there was an indulgent laughter in his voice that Itachi had to smile at. 

He’d done it. He’d successfully beaten back his own demons and subdued a ghost similar to the one who had driven him mad. 

Now if only getting the rest of the gang to trust him and Kisame at the same time as finding out who the traitor was would be just as easy. 

 

⚞⚟

 

Neji hurried through the corridors of the Hyuuga compound for the second time that day, though this time his steps were made quick not by annoyance but by real fear. His hair lay frizzy and damp around his shoulders, his clothes had been thrown on haphazardly, and in one hand he carried a crumpled paper map with desperate scribbles on it, but luckily it was now evening, and most of the people who normally gathered in the compound had left for their individual homes, so there was hardly anyone left to witness his inglorious passing. 

He made his way to the dark hallway he had only barely managed to escape from earlier that day, but all the emotions that had bubbled over then were safely locked away now, hidden under his pragmatic need for action. He had been reminded that there were more people out in the world besides him, and even if he couldn’t fix his own problems, there were other problems out there that were his job to fix. There was no one waiting in the line of chairs outside the double doors leading to the elder’s courtroom, so Neji ran up to the door and pounded three times on it, hard knocks that reverberated through the hall, before stepping back and attempting to calm his haggard appearance before it opened. If it would open. Most of the elders were likely to have gone home by now, so he would be lucky to catch them for long enough to state his findings. Maybe the doorman would still be there at least, and he could leave a message. 

To his surprise, it wasn’t the doorman who opened the massive double doors a few seconds later, but his grandfather, the Elder himself. The surprise on his face was mirrored on Neji’s own as he pushed the door open wider. 

“Good God, Neji! What’s going on? Come in, come in!” 

“Thank… thank you,” Neji panted, taking the route offered him and joining his grandfather in the elder’s courtroom. The place was almost deserted - even the doorman had already gone - save for a few members locked in a heated discussion that was quickly silenced as soon as they saw Neji. 

When Neji had passed through the doors, they were quickly shut behind him. In the full courtroom, the sound held a sense of finality, but in the more casual setting, the effect was rather lost. A pressure settled on Neji’s shoulder, and he looked back to see his grandfather resting a comforting hand there. 

“What’s got you in a dander, Neji?” He asked with a facade of calm overlaying a harder expression in his eyes. “Enough that you had to come see us in person, and after hours?” 

_ You haven’t come to try and change our minds on the engagement again, have you? _ Those deceptively cold eyes asked, but Neji didn’t have enough space in his mind right then to worry about Hinata or the engagement. Or even if he did, he chose to spend it on a more pressing matter. 

“Forgive me my disheveled appearance, Grandfather,” he gasped out, still out of breath from running so far. “I wasn’t sure if I would make it in time. I had to see someone from the council before the end of the day. I’m calling in a code orange.” 

The few elders who were standing in the center of the room stiffened at the words, and Neji’s grandfather’s hand tightened on his shoulder. 

“Are you sure?” He rasped, his face taking on a gaunt quality. “Where? How much time do we have?” 

His sudden change of attitude was understandable. As a File Operator, one of Neji’s jobs was to read through all the monthly reports of local spectral activity, and as the Seattle liaison, he was also in charge of reading and filing a comprehensive report from each of the other File Operators. The single most important action someone could take as a File Operator was calling in a code to the elders, because it meant they had identified a problem that would now have to be resolved. 

Neji rarely had to call a code himself for a location outside his personal region, as the local File Operator would likely beat him to it unless they were absolutely terrible at their job. When he did call them, however, that only made the elders listen to him all the harder for it. 

There were several tiers of codes designated with different colors depending on the kind of emergency they represented. A code blue was the kind most often called, which meant there was a human outside the family - or the Uchiha family - that had seen someone work and had grown suspicious. It was the least of the codes someone could call in, and also the most recently added. Technically, Neji should have called in a code blue after the fiasco in Konoha several weeks earlier, but hadn't, for obvious reasons. 

A code yellow meant that a potentially bad situation had been identified before it could become a problem. This usually meant that someone died who it was thought to have the potential to become a draugr, or a draugr or other powerful ghost was found in the earliest stages of formation. They were easily dealt with at that stage, but if they slipped through the tight net of the Hyuuga, they had the potential to become a code orange. 

Unlike a code yellow or blue, which could be left for a short period of time before an emergency arose, a code orange required immediate attention. It was the code that meant a draugr, wraith, or other dangerous spirit had been discovered and needed to be dealt with. There was only one other code that was ranked higher, and that was code red, which was only used after a body had been found or a person had gone missing. 

“New York,” Neji answered his grandfather’s long-forgotten question. 

“New York? As in, New York City?” A frown crept across the Elder’s face. “Isn't that in Tokuma’s region? Why isn't he calling in the code?” 

“Let me show you.” 

Darting over to the nearest beach where the lowest tier of elders would sit when their court was in session, Neji smoothed out the crumpled piece of paper in his hand and hunched over it. On both sides and behind him, he felt the presences of the elders who had still been in the room m loom towards him to see, his grandfather directly over his left shoulder. 

“Here.” He pointed to a spot he had marked on the map, a small town in New Jersey, then traced his finger in a semicircle through all the other marks he had made before coming to a stop on New York City. “And these as well, ending right here. Each is a case of unsolved arson, suspected spectral influence. Spanning two regions, so neither File Operator noticed on their own.” 

One of the elders behind Neji gave a delicate cough. “I will admit that this is cause for worry, but a code orange on this information alone? It just doesn’t seem worrisome enough.” 

“That's what I thought too,” Neji admitted, “until I got a call from Iroha, the Boston File Operator, this afternoon. One of his men was caught and burned fairly badly in this fire-” his finger moved to the fire in question, in Connecticut “-and he said he just woke up and started raving that the fire was set on purpose, to get rid of him, and by a wraith.” 

“By a wraith?” The Elder said sharply, his gaze narrowing. “That's exactly what he said? A wraith?” 

“Yes.” Neji took a deep breath. This was going to be the hard part- especially in such close quarters to this many elders. He would have to watch every word he said very carefully. “And there was one other thing, something that made everything else click into place. A word: Akatsuki. Apparently, the man said it during his ravings.” 

Hot breath from an elder leaning closer hit the back of Neji’s neck. “Akatsuki? What does that mean?” 

“When Sasuke and I were… investigating in Konoha a week ago,” Neji said in a measured breath, feeling his heart start to race, “we decided that there were wraiths in Konica at some point, but they had left for unknown reasons. During our investigation, we discovered that the particular group that had been there had called themselves the Akatsuki… and there was also evidence to suggest that one of the wraiths may have been a pyrokinetic.” 

“Good God…” the Elder whispered almost under his breath. “And so this group might now be in New York City? How many, do you think?” 

“Three… maybe four.” 

“Four?!” The elders surrounding Neji all sucked in breaths of differing force. 

“Thank you for calling this to our attention, Neji,” his grandfather said with a look of calm that belies the panic he himself was feeling. “We will dispatch an appropriate response from the local area immediately-” 

“No!” Neji yelled instinctively, then winced when he saw the elders around him draw back with puzzled and slightly angry expressions. “I mean, no, please let me go instead. I don't really have any concrete proof, just a name and a hunch, and that's going to be difficult for someone to work with. Besides, I might notice things others wouldn't because of the time I spent in Konoha. I've already spoken to Sasuke, and he's willing to be my partner if you approve.” 

The skin around the Elder’s eyes tightened. Neji held his breath, waiting for a response. The way he'd gone about that, arranging things without asking the elders’ permission first, was unorthodox and risky. If he was in front of the full council instead of just a few members, he would never get away with it. As it was, he could see the gears turning in his grandfather’s mind, weighing the benefits of proper respect versus the faultless plan Neji had already come up with. 

Neji saw it in his eyes when efficiency won out over power, and the Elder nodded. “Fine. We’ll make an official request for him. Anything else?” 

Hesitating slightly before answering, Neji said, “I can't -  _ won’t  _ \- bring Hinata with me. I brought her to Konoha, but that would have only been a code yellow. I can't bring her to the scene of a potential code orange; she's not ready yet.” 

“Fair enough.” The Elder nodded, and Neji couldn't help but feel surprised at the ease with which he agreed. “We’ll find someone suitable to take over her training during the time you are away, and perhaps the time away from you will allow her to look upon the news of your betrothal in a different light.” 

So that was his game. But Neji refused to show that he had been affected, or even let himself be affected; right now, he had a job to do, and that was all that was on his mind. He inclined his head to his grandfather. 

“Understood. As time is of the essence in this case, I would like your permission to leave as soon as I can.” 

“Permission granted,” the Elder said with a nod, touching his grandson on the shoulder. He looked like he wanted to say something, but finally shook his head and gave a terse grunt. “Good luck, Neji. Stay safe.” 

As this was the most grandfatherly thing the Elder had ever done for him, Neji couldn't refuse him a small smile. “Thank you. I'll return soon, don't worry.” 

“Yes.” Turning brusquely away from Neji, the Elder laid his hands flat against the table. “You are dismissed.” 

“Thank you, Grandfather.” Neji inclined his head one last time before turning to go, calmly leaving the depths of a room he had barely escaped from earlier that day. When the doors boomed shut behind him, the Elder sighed and sat down with hunching shoulders, looking suddenly older than he had before. 

“I'm getting too old for this,” he murmured, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a pained expression before asking the room at large, “Would anyone happen to have any Tylenol on them?” 

“I do,” the woman to his left said, rummaging through a small purse and drawing out a couple of pills, which she handed him. 

“Thank you.” The Elder took the pills and swallowed them dry, grimacing. “Gah. That never gets any better.” 

“He certainly is something,” another one of the elders said almost wondrously with his gaze glued to the door Neji had just exited, shaking his head in amazement. “His professionalism is remarkable. Do you think he’ll ever catch on to what we’re planning for him?” 

“I doubt it,” the Elder sighed, letting his shoulders droop. “He's far too complacent with his lot in life to think of bettering himself- just as we raised him to be. Honestly, though… I was wondering if we should just tell him.” 

“Tell him!?” The elder who had given him the Tylenol slammed her hands down on the table in front of him. “And waste all the years of secrecy thus far? Why would you even suggest such a thing!?!?” 

“Because Neji’s not a little boy anymore,” the Elder said in a tired voice, rubbing bleary eyes that, up close, appeared to be affected by cataracts. “And I’m not as young as I used to be, either. If we don't tell him soon, we might not have the chance to do so properly.” 

“Lord Hyuuga…” The youngest elder there, a man of perhaps sixty, laid his hand on the Elder’s shoulder. “There is still time. Neji is a bright lad. He’ll figure it out in time, when he needs to.” 

“I hope you're right.”  _ Because if you're not _ , the Elder added in his head,  _ I won't have time to find anyone else.  _

 

⚞⚟

 

Back at his apartment, Neji threw a few sets of clothes into a small suitcase, not bothering to separate his socks and his underwear- which was about as haphazard as he got. He only had three hours before the flight he would be taking to the JFK International Airport in New York City was scheduled to leave the Seattle Airport, and counting on summer lines he would need to be there at least one and a half hours before that, preferably two, which left him with an hour maximum to finish packing and make it to the airport. 

Somehow, the act of making a timeline in his head calmed Neji. Taking a deep breath, he pulled on his raincoat - which he had retrieved from the coatroom in the Hyuuga compound during his second visit of the day - and grabbed his suitcase by the handle, ready to make his exit. 

Right before his hand touched the doorknob, though, a thought he hadn't intended to think made its way into his head.  _ Shikamaru said he would be coming back tomorrow. He won't know where you are.  _

_ And he shouldn't need to! _ Neji retorted to his mind, reaching for the handle of the door again, but paused once more at his inner voice’s snide next words. 

_ And what will he think when he comes back to find you gone? That you’ve run away from him? What will he do then? Something stupid enough to catch the attention of a less agreeable member of your family?  _

_ Dammit!  _ Neji swore at his mind, snatching his fingers away from the door handle as if burned him. Dropping his suitcase on the floor in front of his apartment door, he hurried to his computer and snatched up a piece of paper from the printer, tearing it in half for a better size to leave a note on. His eyes searched for a moment before he located the nearest pen and snatched it up. 

_ S,  _ he wrote at the top of the page, hoping Shikamaru would be able to tell it was for him. 

_ S~ _

_ I'm in New York for work. It was important and I had to leave as soon as I could. I don't know when I'll be back; it may be a few days, maybe a week. I think it would be for the best if you didn't follow me.  _

_ Neji H.  _

Neji folded the note in half, then thought of something else and unfolded it again. 

_ P.S. The elders got wind of that little stunt you pulled a few days ago. PLEASE be careful of where you go and what you do from now on, or they  _ will _ catch you. I'm serious. _

Tilting his head to the side, Neji considered his plea, then underlined the word PLEASE. Twice. Satisfied that his intent would now be passed on clearly in his message, he refolded it and cast his eye around for a good place to leave it. 

He couldn't leave it laying around just anywhere because a copy of his key was in file at the Hyuuga compound so if a problem arose while he was away, someone could come in to check on the apartment, and a note like that would be pretty hard to explain if someone found it on his kitchen counter. Biting his lip in thought, Neji moved to his bedroom, drumming his fingers against the doorframe as he looked for a place that would be both out of the way and an intuitive hiding spot. 

His face lit up when his eyes landed in the chessboard shoved haphazardly under the corner of his bed, barely peeking out from underneath the blankets hanging off the edge. Perfect. Pulling out the chessboard, Neji repositioned it on his bedside table, then folded the note one more time to make it smaller and tucked it under the base of the white king. There. It was out of the way enough that only the nosiest of snoopers would discover it, but intuitive enough that Shikamaru was bound to find it without too much trouble. 

Pulling back, Neji retreated to the door of his room only to pause a third time with his hand on the handle and the pen still in his grasp. Running through his mind a second time, the message now seemed impersonal and cold. He hadn't intended it to come out that way, but it had, and he didn't want to leave that kind of a message for Shikamaru, especially in the light of everything that had happened earlier that day. 

Probably against his better judgement, Neji made his way back to the chessboard and picked up the note, opening it so he could see the words he had written. His pen drifted to the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, and after he had reread the message, he pressed down on the paper where the pen had drifted and wrote a few more words. 

  1. _P. S._



_ I miss you.  _

He regretted the additional postscript almost as soon as he'd written it, but not enough to tear it off the original note. Feeling a little like he was doing something he shouldn't, Neji quickly replaced the note under the base of the white king and retreated from the room before he could convince himself to destroy the note and the traitorous last words it contained. 

His nerves strung too tightly to do anything else, Neji marched to his apartment door, picked up his suitcase, and fled outside, letting the door slam shut behind him without a backwards glance. It would lock automatically. 

Wan light peeked through the clouds overhead, and Neji glanced briefly upwards in surprise and gratitude. A second quick glance down at his watch confirmed that he was ahead of his self-set schedule, so he deliberately slowed his pace by a fraction to better enjoy the rare good weather. 

 

⚞⚟

 

Shikamaru slipped through the window of a familiar Seattle apartment, shadows tailing after him and hiding his aura from all but the most keen-eyed of observers. Like he’d promised Neji, he’d gone down to Oregon for a few days to check up on a few old friends and see if they were dead yet or not. Of the three he’d tried to track down, one, he found out, had died in the war a few weeks after him but had not become a ghost, one had committed suicide at the age of sixty-four after getting back safely from the war and again, hadn’t stuck around after the fact, and the last one was still alive, but a slobbering mess of an old man in a nursing home. Shikamaru had quickly left after locating him; he wanted to remember the man he had known, not this broken shell that was all that remained. 

His amusement cut shorter than he had anticipated, Shikamaru had been forced to occupy himself with other distractions until the time he had agreed to come back to Seattle and Neji. His upper lips curled upwards into a smile as he remembered some of those distractions; he couldn’t wait to show Neji what he had been doing. 

Grinning rather insufferably, Shikamaru settled down on the bed in a lounging position, waiting for Neji to notice him. As the seconds ticked by and no exuberant young man came bursting through the door, however, that grin came to be replaced by a frown. Had Neji not missed him as much as he’d anticipated? Impossible. But why hadn’t he come looking for him yet? He had to know he was here, especially if he was in the apartment-

Shikamaru cut his thoughts off with a curse and floated to the bedroom door, passing through it to look at the room beyond. No Neji. He expanded his search to the whole apartment, and still found no sign of the young man. With another mental curse, he realized that the apartment felt empty as well, devoid of energy, like it hadn’t been occupied in at least a day, and the bed, he discovered when he floated back through the bedroom door, looked like it hadn’t been slept in the night before. 

Gritting his teeth in annoyance, Shikamaru cast his eyes around the room for some clue as to why Neji wasn’t there to greet him. Had he been detained by the so-called “elders” he had been so worried about meeting? Or had he left purposefully so he wouldn’t see Shikamaru? The phantom quickly squashed that idea down; he didn’t want to even consider it, and besides, Neji’s personality wasn’t the kind to do something like that anyway. 

And no, the Konoha incident didn’t count. Even though it was the same exact thing. Because it wasn’t the same exact thing. Damn it. 

As these thoughts started racing around his brain, Shikamaru suddenly found his eyes alighting on the chessboard on the table next to Neji’s bed. It was his board, and not where he’d left it, under the bed. Additionally, only a few of the pieces had been set up as if whoever had left it there had been in a rush, including both kings, a bishop of either side, a white knight, a black rook, and a few pawns. What caught his eye most, however, was the slip of paper sticking out from under the base of the white king. 

His interest piqued, Shikamaru floated over to the chessboard and called the piece of paper out from under the king without disturbing the rest of the board. The words were written in a gentle looping script Shikamaru instantly recognized as Neji’s, despite never having seen it before. 

_ S~ _

_ I'm in New York for work. It was important and I had to leave as soon as I could. I don't know when I'll be back; it may be a few days, maybe a week. I think it would be for the best if you didn't follow me.  _

_ Neji H. _

_ P.S. The elders got wind of that little stunt you pulled a few days ago. PLEASE be careful of where you go and what you do from now on, or they  _ will _ catch you. I'm serious. _

Shikamaru sighed and let the note float in front of his face. He had really been looking forward to seeing Neji again and showing off the skills he’d been practicing while he was away, but it looked like they had been pushed even further back now.  _ Well, at least I’ll have more time to perfect it _ , the logical part of his mind supplied, but for once, Shikamaru wasn’t interested in listening to it. He sighed again and shoved his hands in his pockets, considering what he could do for the next week. 

_ Well, I could always go for another trip _ , he considered.  _ There’s someone in Texas I’ve been meaning to track down… but what if Neji comes back to Seattle before I do? Then I’ll miss out on time with him, and I want to do it as soon as possible…. Maybe I could stay around here… nah, that’s probably too dangerous… I’d like to follow him, but he asked me not too… then again, when have I ever listened to what he says…?  _

As this dialogue was running through his head, the note flipped lazily in front of Shikamaru’s nose in a draft, flashing to his attention another few words written on the bottom right-hand corner of the piece of paper that he hadn’t noticed before. Words that caused his eyes to widen and his breath to catch, and if his heart possessed the ability to pump, it might have skipped a beat. 

  1. _P. S._



_ I miss you.  _

Shikamaru instantly straightened up and folded the note back into a small square, putting it securely in his pocket. There was no way in Hell he was letting Neji have an entire week by himself after reading that. He mentally fixed his target in his mind, then let shadows swirl around his body and sank down into them, leaving the room untouched with the exception of the white king moved a square to the side. It was time to find his fairy-boy. 


	10. A Desolate CIty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neji and Sasuke make it to New York CIty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, actually screw me. One a day until it was done, I said. In my defense, I actually had my computer in the shop for a while due to a faulty battery and not being able to hold a charge for more than 10 DAMN MINUTES but HOLY SHIT I swear to all that is holy in any religion you might practice that this will all be up before the week is out. 
> 
> Cheers, Addi
> 
> Also, the last segment of this chapter lives up to the rating. Just a *friendly* warning ;)

⚞⚟

 

When Itachi and Kisame emerged from their respective rooms the next morning, much later then they had the previous day, the very air in the house seemed cleaner. The sunlight filtered more brightly - or more warmly, in Itachi’s case - through the windows, and the people who passed them in the hallways were more polite and cheerful. As they ate a well-prepared breakfast, Kisame remarked on the change. 

“Does it seem nicer here this morning to you too, or is it just me?” 

“It’s not just you.” Itachi carefully took a mouthful of toast coated with a very fragrant strawberry jam - which he’d been allowed to spread on the bread himself, hallelujah - and leaned a little closer to Kisame so his words wouldn’t be as easily overheard. “It’s because of what we did last night- and I’m not just talking about the meeting.” 

“Ahhh…” The subtle mean behind Itachi’s comment audibly clicked in Kisame’s head. “A ghost can do that?” 

“If it’s strong enough, yeah. Someone like… well, Button wouldn’t have that kind of effect just because of the kind of ghost she was, but your father was headed down the road to being a nasty one. We’re lucky we got him to fade when we did.” 

“So about that fading business…” Kisame took a swig of his coffee. “Think you could explain it a little better for me? I mean, I think I understand the gist of it, but I don’t really get everything, you know?” 

“Hmmm… I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Itachi replied in a completely deadpan voice, causing Kisame to spit out some of his coffee and start coughing as he tried to hold in his laughter. 

“You’d have to kill me?! What were the people from your family, a bunch of spies?!” 

“Something like that.” Itachi took another bite of his toast while keeping his face black. 

“What are you two doing in here?” Miru’s rang out from behind them, propelling both Kisame and Itachi into fit - another, in Kisame’s case - of laughter. 

“I’ll tell you when we figure it out!” Kisame said when he calmed down enough to speak. “Anyway, what’s up? You need something?” 

“No, I just thought I’d give you a head’s up on what’s happening today.” Miru sat down on the other side of Kisame, and Itachi turned assumedly back to his toast as they continued to talk. “Raiga’s going to visit the hospital soon, so I thought I’d let you know.” 

“The hospital?” Kisame leaned toward her. “To visit Ranmaru?” 

“How did you know-? Nevermind,” Miru cut herself off with a shake of her head. “Nothing ever gets past you, does it, Itachi?” 

Itachi only smiled in response and saluted her with his toast. 

“Anyway, I just thought it would be a good chance to get Raiga on your side. Not that he doesn’t support you already, but he’s a wild card, so it’s best to err on the side of caution with him. If you get my drift.” 

“I do,” Kisame replied with a slight incline of his head. 

“Excellent. I’ll leave you to your breakfast, then, and tell him to pop by when he’s about to leave.” Miru stood up and walked to the door, then turned around right before exiting. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Fuguki suggested something to me last night that I thought I might relay to you so you can think on it before our next meeting tomorrow morning. He thought it might be a good idea to have a meeting with some of the other Bosses in the area to let them know we have a new Boss and that we’re in the process of changing our name back to the original. It’s risky, but we might impress them. It’s up to you.” 

Kisame scratched his chin in thought. “I’ll think over it before the meeting. Thank you, Miru. I’m glad you brought this to my attention. That was good thinking on your part.” 

A glow of pride, though restrained, entered her voice. “You’re welcome, Boss.” 

Then the door snicked closed behind her, leaving the pair in silence with their breakfast. After waiting a few seconds to ensure that Miru had gotten far enough away from the door that she couldn’t hear them, Kisame asked, “Did she just do what I think she just did?” 

“Call you by a term of respect in private  _ and _ inform you of a plan told to her in confidence by someone who opposes your leadership almost outspokenly? Yes, by God, she did.” 

“And does that mean what I think it means?” 

“Yes, it does.” Itachi felt a grin spread across face. “We officially have one ally inside these walls.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Neji stood still in the center of the busy New York City airport, letting the endless crowd of people swirl around him like the sides of a cyclone around its calm eye. He glanced down at his phone, waiting for a message to pop up and annoyed that nothing was forthcoming. His upper lip curled upwards; Sasuke’s plane should have gotten there before his, so he should be here already, waiting for Neji, not the other way around. He checked the service on his phone; he had three bars, so there was no chance of a message getting lost. Where was he? 

A hand landed on his shoulder suddenly, shocking him out of his thoughts. When turned around to give his aggressor a glare, he was surprised to find Sasuke standing there with a goofy grin on his face. 

“I called your name like three times, Neji! You got cotton in your ears or something?” 

“Something like that,” Neji agreed tersely, slipping his phone in his pocket. “Are you ready?” 

“As I’ll ever be.” The grin on Sasuke’s face slipped somewhat. “Let’s get this over with.” 

“I agree.” 

They headed out of the airport together, and Neji waved down a taxi as soon as they reached the front gate. The taxi driver offered to take both of their suitcases and stash them in the trunk for them, but both Neji and Sasuke refused, leaving the driver somewhat flummoxed, but he just shrugged and mutter something about the tight squeeze in the backseat being their problem. When they had gotten inside the taxi and settled, Neji gave the driver the address of the hotel he had booked for the next week, and the driver punched it into his GPS. A line flowed out from where they were to the hotel, along with a charge counter that started counting up as soon as they started moving. 

“I can’t believe you already booked a hotel room,” Sasuke said quietly to him so the driver wouldn’t overhear. “I barely had time to pack and jump on a plane after you called me. How did you manage to convince your family to get it approved for me to come too, by the way?” 

“Don’t underestimate the influence I hold as the Seattle File Operator,” Neji said back in the same quiet voice. “The Hyuuga elders listen to what I say, even if they don’t always take my advice.” He hoped that those last words weren’t bitter enough that Sasuke would pick up on it, but the chance was very small. 

Still, Sasuke didn’t remark on it, just settled more comfortably into the uncomfortable taxi seat. At least they’d managed to snag one that looked like it hadn’t been vomited in for a while. “So, what’s our plan for tonight? Sleep, then start tomorrow?” 

“It’s already morning,” Neji pointed out, inclining his head to the glowing 3:28 on the dashboard of the taxi. “I slept on the plane. We might as well start now.” 

“Now?!” Sasuke’s mouth dropped open. “But it’s three in the morning!” 

“And thus will be less crowded.” 

“But what about jet lag? Isn’t it like, midnight your time? Aren’t you tired?” 

“Again, I slept on the plane. And the time difference is only more reason to start now. If I go to sleep now, I’ll likely not wake up for some time. I have the stamina to start, so I will start. Your powers aren’t needed now anyways, so I can start without you.” 

“No, no, I’ll come with you,” Sasuke quickly interjected, flicking a suspicious look at the taxi driver, who had started to pay more attention to the two in his backseat after Neji’s offhand mention of “powers”. “I won’t leave you without backup, not is a situation like this. I’ll come with.”

“Excellent.” Neji nodded to himself. “Then prepare yourself. We have a long day ahead of ourselves.” 

 

⚞⚟

 

Forty-five minutes later, Neji and Sasuke made their way out of the entrance of the hotel they were staying at, having paid the taxi, checked in, dropped off their luggage, and successfully staved off sleep at the sight of two very comfortable-looking beds. Neji flipped the collar of his jacket down as they started walking down the sidewalk, shrugging his shoulders to make himself more comfortable in the heavy garment coupled with the heat. In juxtaposition to him, Sasuke had changed into a pair of shorts and a causal shirt with a sweatshirt thrown over the top to combat the chill of the early - very early - morning air that would soon be replaced by the oppressive heat of a city in summer without the blanket of clouds that covered Seattle. Neji didn’t mind his extra clothes, though; he’d had too many experiences without them the past few days to be entirely comfortable dressing as casually as Sasuke was. 

“Where to first, Captain?” Sasuke asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and deliberately slouching his back. 

Ignoring his deliberate bad posture, Neji straightened his back and considered for a moment. “Somewhere high, I think. So I can look over the city.” 

“Empire State Building?” Sasuke immediately suggested, but Neji shook his head. 

“Too many people around. Besides, don’t they close at night?” 

“I dunno, I always thought they were open at night. People take nighttime pictures from up there, don’t they?” 

“But at 4 am?” Neji sighed. “Regardless, it’s still too crowded. I need somewhere there’s no chance someone will come across me when I’m working.” 

“I thought that was what I was for,” Sasuke protested. 

“Sure, I guess. But even you can’t get rid of four hundred people all trying to snap photos of the man with the glowing white eyes.” Neji suddenly thought of something and stopped short on the sidewalk, causing Sasuke to walk into his back with an undignified yelp. “Hold up, I have an idea. Give me a second.” 

“What is it?” Sasuke, but Neji ignored him, pulling his phone out of his pocket and searching through his email contacts until he found labeled as the File Operator for New York City, then sent him a quick message. Less than a minute later, he received a message back with the information he’d requested. After sending back a quick thanks, he held his phone up so Sasuke could see. 

“See how easy that was? Sometimes it pays to go at things with a little bit of organization and optimize your resources, huh, Uchiha?” 

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” Sasuke muttered, flipping up the hood of his sweatshirt so he could hide beneath the cowl. “Let’s just get a move on, shall we?” 

Fifteen minutes later, Neji and Sasuke were standing outside of a business-like building in the heart of the city that stretched far up into the sky; not as high as some of other, more famous skyscrapers, but higher than all its immediate neighbors. Sasuke scoffed and scuffed the heel of his shoe on the sidewalk when he saw it. 

“Are you sure this is the right place? Doesn’t look  _ deserted enough _ to me; what about you?” 

Neji ignored his comment and pushed the door open, leaving Sasuke to scramble along in his wake. The inside of the lobby was dimly lit and unoccupied, but not locked up, so Neji made his way to the elevator and hit the button to go up. Less than a second later, the doors opened with a ding, and Neji smiled to himself as he got in the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, the doors almost closing on Sasuke before he could make it through. This was the perk of doing things at 4 am. 

“What the Hell, Neji? Are you  _ trying _ to leave me behind?” Sasuke panted, but Neji, again, ignored him and glanced down at his phone. 

The directions he’d been given told him to go through the door of the first office on the right once he got to the top floor, and there would be a secretary there - despite the ungodly hour of morning - who would recognize his eyes and allow him through to the room behind the office, where he would find a set of stairs that would lead up to a deserted rooftop where he could use his Byakugan in peace without the pressure of being found. 

It was so nice to know that he could always count on the organization and obsessive pre-planning of the Hyuuga to get him where he needed to go. 

They stood in stony silence for the rest of the elevator ride until they came to the top floor, and the elevator doors dinged once more, letting them off into a long hallway with doors lining each side. His step confident, Neji led Sasuke to the correct door and pushed it open to see a young woman with the same dark dark hair and pale eyes as Neji sitting behind a desk and trying not to fall asleep. 

“Office is closed,” she said mechanically without looking up at them. “Come back during our normal business hours: nine to six on weekdays, and ten to four on Saturdays-” 

“Excuse me,” Neji interrupted her. “But we’re not here to see your employer. I’d like to take a look at the roof, if you don’t mind.” 

The woman’s gaze snapped up at his words, then her eyes narrowed as they raked over his appearance before she nodded sharply and thrust a clipboard at him. “Just sign here, then, and I’ll show you the way.” 

“Excellent.” Neji wrote his name on the bottom of the list of people who had accessed the roof during the past week, then straightened back up to follow the woman. When Sasuke stepped in line behind him, however, the woman shook her head sharply. 

“No. Just him. No unauthorized persons on the roof.” 

“He’s my guest,” Neji protested, but the woman held firm. 

“Sorry. Rules are rules.” 

“I’m an Uchiha,” Sasuke announced. “Does that make a difference.” 

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “It does if you can prove it. Unless you’ve got some kind of ID on you, you can’t go with him.” 

Sasuke fished in his pocket and drew out his wallet, then extended a plastic ID toward the woman. “This work for you?” 

She eyed it suspiciously for a minute, then sighed and thrust the clipboard at him as well. “I suppose it does. Sign here.” 

It only took a few seconds for Sasuke to write his name with a flourish underneath Neji’s, then he passed her back the clipboard with a cheeky grin and she placed it on her desk before opening up the door to the inner office. Once through, she opened another door, one that almost blended into the wall, and ushered them inside. Unlike the bright, white-walled office they had just been in, this door led to a dimly lit hallway with dark walls and a stairway made of metal grating leading upward that looked like it was left over from the original scaffolding of the building. 

“Follow these stairs, and you’ll reach the top,” the woman instructed them before turning to leave. A thought visibly occurred to her just as she was about to close the door, though, and she turned back to the pair. “Oh, and please try not to fall or jump off the top. The paperwork is such a hassle.” 

Then she closed the door in their faces, leaving them alone in the dimly lit hallway. 

Sasuke snorted and stepped back to allow Neji to go first. “Well, isn’t she just a ball of sunshine. Ladies first.” 

Neji sent Sasuke a glare but took the proffered first spot, climbing up the rickety stairs with as little contact with the grease-stained handrail as possible. After a good twenty or thirty stairs, they finally reached another door, which Neji opened to reveal the crisp air of early morning high in the sky, hovering above a city full of heavy pollution and constant light. 

The juxtaposition was beautiful, Neji couldn’t help but think. 

Though it was still dark, the eastern horizon just barely starting to lighten, when Neji stepped out of the doorway and looked up, he couldn’t see any stars. Now that he was out of the minimal protection offered by the lee of the threshold, the wind whipped around him and through him, swirling his hair around his face like a messy cyclone. Once he stood in the center of the roof, he turned to remark something to Sasuke, only to find him still back at the door, clutching the sides of the doorway with white-knuckled fingers. 

“What’s the matter, Sasuke?” Neji called, a frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows. 

“Everything’s fine!” Sasuke called back, but Neji noticed that there was a note of panic in his voice. “I- I think I’ll just stay back here and let you do your thing in peace, is all.” 

Neji’s frown deepened. “Are you sure that’s all it is?” 

“Yes! Absolutely!” Sasuke’s voice jumped almost a full octave during his assurance when a particularly strong gust of wind sent a nearby railing creaking, and a grin spread across Neji’s face when he realized what the problem was. 

“Sasuke, you’re afraid of heights!” 

His eyes growing wide with alarm, Sasuke squeaked, “I am  _ not _ afraid of heights; I am afraid of  _ falling _ ! There is a big difference!” 

“Whatever you say,” Neji laughed, turning back to the cityscape in front of him with a rueful shake of his head. He made his way to the nearest railing and leaned over it to look down at the streets below him, the tiny cars crawling along like marching ants and the lights from the buildings below like so many fireflies. It was a city of insects, he mused as he pulled his hair back from his face and bundled it tighter into the band, keeping it from flying into his eyes; he would need their full capacity for this. 

It really was a perfect lookout station. He would have to look into manufacturing one for Seattle. That would make his job so much easier. 

Taking a deep breath, Neji lifted his face up to the sky and allowed his eyes to drift shut, gathering energy in his core in preparation for the hunt. The power swirled inside him until the pressure it put on his stomach made him want to lean over the railing again and throw up the little he’d managed to stomach before getting on the plane, but he held firm until every scrap of power that resided in his body was caught in a singular location, then he lifted his arms up to the sky with a shout. 

“Byakugan!” 

A white glow flared behind his closed eyelids, illuminating lines of power on his face in glowing script that only intensified when he allowed his eyes to flutter open and gazed about him with eyes of pure white. No pupil or iris marred the impressive colorless expansive, making it a mystery how they could be so perceptive in their vision, relaying to Neji’s brain colors and shades unknowable to the unreceptive eye. 

Colors of emotion swirled around different parts of the city, layering the air in swaths of hazy fog as thick as the pollution from the tailpipes of thousands of idling cars. Here, in the corporate sector, the overpowering color was a vortex of sickly green: greed and jealousy. There, down in the alleyways, was the dark muddled greys, almost blacks, of desperation and abject despair; elsewhere, ambivalence overpowered a few streets in a frozen shade of grayish blue, worry hijacked a building in tones of shimmering dusty red, heartache downed a bridge in blue from the people who had jump from it, and panicked hurry infused the entrance to a subway with dark fuchsia tones. 

New York really was a desolate city, Neji realized as he gazed down upon it. It put the layers of emotion in Seattle to shame. There was something to be said about the most notorious city in the country- notorious for reasons both good and bad. 

But, as interesting as these layers of colored emotion that lay over the city like so many layers of smog were, they weren’t what Neji was here to see, so he closed his eyes briefly to rid himself of the vision and then reopened them with a different intention in mind. Carefully delving under the layers of emotion, Neji allowed his senses to explore the more sedentary layers of spectral energy clinging tightly to the buildings and streets like a covering of grease or ooze. Like the colors of emotion, the spectral energy had different colors it could take on as well, depending on the most prevalent kind of ghost in the area, but the colors were less brilliant as those for emotion and thus were harder to find. Concentrating as hard as he could, Neji narrowed his eyes and swept his gaze around the city, taking note of every color he saw and dismissing them just as quickly when they weren’t what he was looking for. 

The auras of wraiths, unique among all other ghosts, were thick and black, like treacle or tar, and stuck to the places they’d been long after they’d left. His nostril flaring as if he could scent the trail of the wraiths as well as see it with his eyes, Neji searched until he found a smudge of black on a floor high in a skyscraper not too far from the one he was standing on, in the corporate sector. Instantly zeroing in on it, he distinguished the fainter end of the smudge from the darker one, then traced it through the city as it leapt from building to building, street to street, carefully hidden at all times but getting steadily darker. The slimy trail, like that left behind from the passage of a slug or snail, traversed the city in a series of spirals, first carving out a section with a circle and then traveling steadily inwards with smaller circles, as if whoever had made it was looking for something and willing to scour the whole city to find it. 

That thought was disconcerting enough on its own. 

Narrowing his eyes even further, Neji followed the trail as quickly as he could, jumping from spiral to spiral until the black smudges on the ground were dark enough that he was reasonable sure they had been made within the past twenty-four hours. His eyes quickly traced the rest of the trail until it stopped at the entrance of a building about twenty-five blocks west of the one Neji was standing on top of. It was inside of an incomplete spiral, but not centered in it, so Neji knew they wouldn’t be leaving the area for awhile- at least until they completed the spiral. With a nod, Neji noted the buildings on the outside of the spiral for reference, then allowed his Byakugan to fade, his eyes losing their ethereal qualities and taking on their normal appearance once more. 

He almost staggered when he tried to take a step and had to grip the railing with both hands to avoid falling. His breath hissing out from between clenched teeth, Neji got his feet back underneath him and carefully tested their function before letting them take the brunt of his body once more. He always forgot how exhausted using that aspect of his power made him, especially for as long as he had. It was hard to count the passage of time when he was lost in the world of spectral energy and colorful emotions, but it might have been a half an hour, perhaps even an hour, since he’d first stepped out on the roof, especially if one took into account the eastern horizon, which was bleeding through with blue and other colors that spoke of dawn approaching. 

Neji turned back to tell Sasuke what he had discovered, only to find him sitting in the doorway where he had left him, his head tilted to the side and resting on the door frame, eyes closed and jaw slack. He really must have been tired, Neji figured as he strode back to the doorway and gently shook him awake with a hand on his shoulder. Perhaps a little sleep would do them both good. 

Sasuke awoke with a yawn and bleary eyes, and Neji held a hand out to him that he gratefully took. Together, they descended back down from the roof, shutting the door behind them in the face of the rising sun. They’d done enough work for one morning. 

 

⚞⚟

 

Neji stood at the window of the hotel room that he and Sasuke were sharing, peering safely down at the street below him from behind the obstruction of the curtain. Behind him, Sasuke snored softly on one of the beds, completely dead to the world. Neji had to wonder if he’d gotten any sleep before they’d met up, or if he’d stayed up all night before. Either way, he was dead to the world now, and Neji wasn’t about to wake him up. He needed Sasuke in top shape if they were going to pull off the plan he had in mind. 

Of course, that went for him as well, but for some reason, despite how exhausted he was and how much energy his early-morning escapades had used up, Neji found that his body was refusing to allow himself to sleep. His eyes, which should have been burning with tiredness by now, were alert and watchful. Perhaps, he mused as he scanned the street below and the swarms of people and cars making their way through streets too narrow for their purpose, it was a kind of defense mechanism, preventing him from putting himself in a vulnerable position while he had just used his power to track such a dangerous group of beings. 

Sasuke rolled over and grunted on the bed behind him, and Neji sighed. It looked like his companion was going to be out for a while, so he might as well get some work done while he could, since it appeared that he couldn’t take a nap. Pulling out his phone, he sat down at the table and started going through the emails that had been piling up since his mad dash back to the Hyuuga compound the afternoon before. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep him occupied for an hour. 

Which was, unfortunately, not as long as Sasuke planned to sleep. With a sigh, Neji stood from his spot at the table and stretched to ease his limbs, which were cramped from sitting in the same position for so long, then shrugged off his jacket and hung it up by the door. Perhaps, he mused, a shower might calm him down a little bit and convince his overtired body to sleep. 

As he stood underneath the warm water in the unfamiliar shower in the unfamiliar bathroom, lathering up his hair with unfamiliar shampoo that had an unfamiliar scent, Neji decided that the shower was not helping his nerves- but it did give his tired muscles a massage that he hadn’t known he’d needed, so there was a silver lining to his misery. Grimacing at his sore arms - which didn’t make any sense; it wasn’t like he’d done any heavy lifting recently, but sometimes the Byakugan did strange things to the body if it was used for too long - Neji pushed his hair over his shoulder and got out of the shower, quickly toweling himself off with an unfamiliar fluffy hotel towel before wrapping the towel around his waist and setting out to brush his hair with an unfamiliar brush he found sitting on the bathroom sink next to the free shampoo he’d used earlier. 

His face looked pale and sickly to him as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. Curling his upper lip in distaste, Neji leaned forward to look at his reflection more closely. Were those dark circles under his eyes? 

“Yes, they are,” a very  _ not  _ unfamiliar voice answered the question he hadn’t realized he’d uttered aloud, causing Neji to almost jump out of his towel and turn around to glare at the owner of the voice. 

“I thought I told you not to follow me!” He hissed, clutching the top of his towel and pulling it a little higher just in case in the face of Shikamaru’s smug smile. 

“Yes, you did,” Shikamaru grinned, brushing a half-dried lock of hair back from Neji’s bare shoulder. “And I didn’t listen.” 

“But this is dangerous! I’m here for work! We’re hunting  _ wraiths _ !” 

“What, the same wraiths I held my own against back in Konoha? You’re going to need a better excuse than that, Neji.” 

“And… and… Sasuke is right through that door! What if he wakes up and finds you here?” 

Shikamaru only shrugged, then fished around in his breast pocket for something. “I’m keeping an eye on him. He won’t wake up any time soon.” 

“That doesn’t change-!” 

“And did you really think I was going to let you leave me alone for a week after reading  _ this _ ?” 

Suddenly, there was a piece of paper dangling in front of Neji’s face, too close for him to make out any of the words. He leaned back and the words came into focus, particularly the tiny script in the bottom right hand corner.

_ P. S. _

_ I miss you.  _

He knew he shouldn’t have added that last note. 

With a sigh, Neji pushed the note aside and fixed Shikamaru with a stern look. “Look, Shikamaru, I know I’m probably sending you mixed signals right now, but this isn’t the best-” 

But before he could get the rest of his sentence out, Shikamaru leaned forward and covered his mouth, a smirk dancing at the corners of his mouth. “I missed you too.” 

Neji’s eyes widened; he pulled Shikamaru’s hand away to admonish him, but his mouth was occupied otherwise before he could protest. Darkness invaded him through his open mouth, stealing his self-control away, and he found himself powerless to do anything but kiss Shikamaru back. 

He wasn’t sure when his eyes closed, but he felt Shikamaru’s hand come up to rest on his cheek, tickling his lashes as they rested against his skin. The fabric of his tattered army jacket was rough against Neji’s bare chest, but he reveled in the sensation, grasping the material like he would never let go. The kiss continued for an indeterminate amount of time, perhaps a minute, perhaps ten, before Shikamaru pulled back, and Neji let his eyes flutter open just in time to see his breathless grin. 

“So you really did miss me,” he whispered, tucking a few strands of hair that had fallen over Neji’s eyes behind his ear. 

Neji felt his hands grip Shikamaru’s jacket tighter of their own accord, even as he tried to shake his head. “Shikamaru, I’m sorry, but-” 

“Shh, shh…” Shikamaru cut him off with a finger at his lips, snaking an arm around his waist. “Stop talking.” 

Some serious mental arguing was needed to pry the fingers of one hand away from Shikamaru’s jacket, but Neji managed it and batted away the finger away from his lips. “I’m serious, Shikamaru: you need to stop.” 

Thankfully, something in Neji’s tone must have alerted Shikamaru that something wasn’t quite right, and he stilled instantly. “Why? What’s the problem? What happened, Neji?”

“The situation has… changed,” Neji said after taking a deep breath. “I don’t think… we should be around each other anymore.” 

Shikamaru’s eyes narrowed. “Are you breaking up with me?” 

“I wasn’t aware that we were dating.” 

“Well, I had hoped that we had passed the friends with benefits stage.” 

“This isn’t a joke, Shikamaru.” 

“I wasn’t aware I was being funny.” Shikamaru’s hold around Neji’s waist tightened. “At least tell me  _ why _ , Neji. What changed? God know it wasn’t me; I haven’t even been around! What, then?”

Neji drew himself up defensively. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, now is it?” 

“Ahhh.” A knowing gleam crept into Shikamaru’s eye. “It’s got to do with your family, then? Your so-called ‘elders’?” 

“Drop it, Shikamaru,” Neji growled, pushing him away and turning back to the mirror. 

“No, I don’t think I will.” Suddenly, Neji found himself pushed up against the counter, a strong chest covered in rough material pressed firmly against his back. “Not until you give me a reason.” 

“Shikamaru-!” 

“Do I have to tease it out of you?” Came Shikamaru’s low voice in his ear, causing a shiver to run down his spine as he reached around and rested his hand on Neji’s chest, passing a thumb over a nipple he hadn’t ever realized was sensitive before. 

Both Neji’s breathing and heart rate escalated in tempo, but he managed to fight off the effects of Shikamaru’s touch with little effort. Okay, perhaps more than a little; perhaps a lot of effort. Glaring at the mirror, even though Shikamaru’s reflection was invisible and he couldn’t lock eyes with it, Neji pushed aside the hands grabbing him. “Get your hands off of me,” he spat through gritted teeth. 

“Make me,” Shikamaru murmured, and then licked his earlobe. 

That was the last straw for Neji’s quickly depleting patience. With a snarl, he spun back around and pushed Shikamaru away with all his might, a little surprised when he felt solid skin against his hands and the ghost flew back several feet, landing on his ass on the floor. The towel wrapped around Neji’s waist slipped a little downwards at the movement, and he yanked it back up and tightened it with a vicious tug as he towered over the man on the floor in front of him. 

“You want to know? Fine! I’ll tell you! My  _ betrothal _ was just moved up! Is that a juicy enough family secret for you?” 

Neji supposed he could feel proud of the fact that he’d caused the rare shock etched across Shikamaru’s features, but the knowledge didn’t bring him any pleasure. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?” He jeered, gesturing wildly around him. “That’s right; I’m a _ betrothed man _ ; have been since I was eleven years old! So that means that all of  _ this _ ,” he gestured from himself to Shikamaru, then back to himself, “is immoral, unethical, and against the rules of my family.  _ That _ is what has been going through my head since the first time you kissed me, Shikamaru. And now, everything that I’ve been pushing to the side and avoiding has suddenly come crashing down into my lap. You remember this mark?” 

He lifted up the hair on his neck to show off the fading hickey Shikamaru had left there days before. “You should; you made it. It sparked a rather interesting discussion with my _ Grandfather _ , you know, the leader of the Hyuuga family, that went a little something like this: ‘that girl who made that? You need to let her go. You’ve got your  _ duties to the clan _ to consider.’ My  _ duties _ that consist of marrying a cousin of mine from inside the family, all in the name of making the bloodline stronger. That's right, Shikamaru: I'm not even a person to them, I'm just a useless stud they can pair up as they please to produce what they view as the best next generation.” 

He let his hair fall back over the mark on his neck. “So, what do you have to say about  _ that _ ?” 

An impassive expression dominated Shikamaru’s face for several seconds, then a grin spread across his features. “Gotcha.” 

Neji’s shoulders sagged as he realized they were still playing a game, that he’d danced right into Shikamaru’s palms and done exactly what he’d wanted and expected, and he let his head fall forward, catching his forehead in the palm of his hand. He couldn’t bear to look at Shikamaru anymore, so he spun around and leaned against the counter, his head lowered and shoulders hunched. At least now, he wouldn’t even be able to catch a glimpse of his opponent's smug expression in the mirror. 

“Fuck you,” he whispered quietly. 

Though he couldn’t see his movements, Neji could hear Shikamaru stand and make his way toward him, laying his hands gently on his shoulders. “Was that an offer?” He said quietly in Neji’s ear, his breath tickling the soft hairs that clung to his neck. 

Neji’s skin crawled with a shiver, but he was too mentally exhausted to throw the hands off. “Leave me alone, Shikamaru. You’re an asshole. I hate you.” 

“Now, I know at least one of those things isn’t true.” Shikamaru let go of Neji’s shoulders, only to lean back against the counter next to him with his hands shoved in his pockets, his head tilted slightly to the side. “If you didn’t care about me even a little bit, you wouldn’t be this upset about the prospect of never seeing me again.” 

Despite himself, Neji’s upper lip began to curl. “So you admit to being an asshole?” 

“I thought that went without saying.” Shikamaru reached over and placed his palm on Neji’s cheek, turning his face so he was forced to look him in the eye. “I’m being extremely selfish right now, Neji, and I will continue to be selfish. Because I hate losing.” 

Neji averted his eyes. “Maybe we should call a stop to whatever game we’re playing, then.” 

“It’s too late for that.” Shikamaru leaned in closer. “We stopped playing games a while ago, Neji. Didn’t you realize?” 

Neji shook his head, still avoiding Shikamaru’s gaze. “That’s why you need to get out of here now, before my family finds out what we’ve been up to and hurts you.” 

“Didn’t I make it clear, Neji?” Shikamaru leaned even further toward Neji, until he could feel the phantom’s breath on his lips as he spoke. “I don’t like losing, so I don’t plan on losing you.” 

Neji tried to resist the magnetic draw of Shikamaru’s mouth, he really did, but before he knew what he was doing he had closed the tiny gap that remained between them and pressed his lips to the ghost’s. He felt warmer than usual, he thought distractedly as Shikamaru began to press back, slowly at first and then with more fervor; more solid, perhaps. His hand came up to hold the back of Neji’s head and keep him from escaping, fingers tangling in the strands of almost-dry hair as he did so. 

Though he knew he should pull back, that this was going against what he’d been trying to tell Shikamaru all this time, that Sasuke was asleep in the next room and that he was on a job, Neji couldn’t bring himself to tear himself away from the phantom’s warm - too warm - and solid - too solid - embrace. His arms shifted up to wrap around Shikamaru’s neck, and then in one swift motion the phantom lifted him up and sat him down on the counter. 

“Shi-!” Neji started to squeak at the unexpected jostling, but Shikamaru shut him up again with his tongue rolling into his mouth with the force of a natural disaster. Desperate for more contact, Neji futility yanked at the shoulders of Shikamaru’s army jacket. 

Realizing what Neji wanted with a low chuckle, Shikamaru dismissed both his jacket and his shirt, leaving his torso bare for Neji’s hands to explore, which they did quickly and with purpose as Shikamaru’s knee slipped between his legs, nudging them apart. 

Neji had been right before. Shikamaru felt more solid than normal, and warmer. Almost like… like… 

But he never finished the thought, because the knee Shikamaru had pressed between his legs suddenly brushed up against his swelling erection, taking his mind off everything other than the sensations coursing through his body. He arched his back, trying to push himself closer to Shikamaru, but the phantom only chuckled and moved away. 

“Shikamaru!” Neji panted, the pitch of his voice like the whine of an overheated animal. “Don’t- don’t tease me!” 

“I’m not planning on it,” he replied with an extremely self-satisfied smile, sinking to his knees in front of the counter Neji was perched on and resting a hand on the inside of his knee. “May I?” 

Neji hesitated for only a second before responding; after all, this was the perfect chance to stop what was happening like he’d intended to, but his body was too far gone now to give up. Somehow, without noticing, he’d become addicted to the feeling of Shikamaru’s skin against his own. “Y-yes. Oh, God, yes- don’t stop!” 

The corner of the phantom’s upper lip curled in amusement. “Your wish is my command, O Fairy King.” 

Before Neji could respond to the strange new nickname, Shikamaru leaned forward and distracted him by dragging his leg to the side and then placing a soft kiss directly on the inside of his knee. He whimpered at the sensation, and Shikamaru’s eyes flashed up at the sound before a smirk took over his face. “So you’re sensitive there, are you?” 

Neji was barely able to gasp out some kind of agreement before Shikamaru’s lips were back on the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, kissing a soft trail from the back of his knee upwards, pushing up the towel as he went and occasionally flicking his eyes upwards to gauge Neji’s reaction. Just when Neji thought he’d reached his goal, however, he pulled back, gave Neji a positively evil look, and then pressed a kiss behind his other knee, repeating the entire process on the other side. 

By the time Shikamaru had finished with his teasing, Neji was gripping the edge of the counter he was sitting on with white-knuckled abandon. Both of Shikamaru’s hands lay, thick-fingered and clutching with almost desperate abandon, on Neji’s thighs, and he rose up close to Neji’s ear to whisper an order before falling back to his knees. 

“Don’t make a sound. You wouldn’t want Sasuke to wake up, now would you?” 

Neji slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the groan that fought to escape at just the words themselves. How would he be able to show his face ever again if Sasuke found him like this? 

“Are you sure he’s asleep?” He hissed through his fingers, his cheeks quickly bypassing a delicate pink and turning a frightful shade of red. 

“Mm-hmm.” Shikamaru nodded and settled one hand on Neji’s bare stomach, just above the place where the towel around his waist was knotted. “Do you trust me?” 

Did he trust him? Of course; that answer was instantaneous. The bigger question was whether or not Neji had the strength to tell him no. 

As it turned out, he didn’t. Neji gave a single nod, his hand still clasped over his mouth, and Shikamaru leaned forward to press a kiss against his stomach, where his hand had been, before he took the towel knot in his teeth and slowly began to tug it aside, locking eyes with Neji and keeping the contact all the while. It came apart easily under his ministrations, too easily for as tight a knot as Neji had tied; he was probably using telekinesis to help him along. When it was completely undone, he grabbed one edge of the towel in his teeth and pulled it off to the side, then repeated the action on the other side, leaving Neji’s skin bare to the open air. 

Though he knew that the air in the bathroom was hot and humid from the shower he had just taken, it felt cold to Neji as it brushed up against his bare crotch because of how overheated his skin was. Shikamaru’s corporeal breath teased him with puffs only slightly warmer than the air around him, his lips a feather’s-breadth away from brushing up against Neji’s skin and yet so tantalizing in their distance. He stuck out just the tip of his tongue and touched it ever so gently to the inside of Neji’s thigh, causing him to jump and almost flinch away at the unexpected sensation, then started to draw swirling patterns on his skin with sticky spectral saliva that lingered for only a few seconds before evaporating into nothingness. 

Up and around his thigh Shikamaru’s tongue swirled, coming closer and closer to the place Neji wanted him to reach with every pass, yet somehow just missing it every time. Letting out a whine of frustration that was muffled by the hand he still kept securely over his mouth, Neji unconsciously squeezed his knees together, catching Shikamaru’s head between his thighs in a tight grip. In response, Shikamaru pulled his tongue back into his mouth and seized Neji’s knees with a reproachful look, pushing them as far apart as they would go. 

If Neji’s face could go any redder, it did when Shikamaru picked up one of his legs and hooked it over his shoulder, taking away even more of Neji’s control over the situation and opening him up for the phantom’s inspection. His skin crawled as Shikamaru’s heated gaze raked over his flesh, but not in a bad way; it felt like the cold shiver one might get down their spine after overheating right to the line of danger- seductive in its overstimulation, but not quite crossing the line into dangerous territory. 

“Is this what you wanted?” Shikamaru murmured against his skin, rubbing his cheek up the inside of Neji’s thigh as he went until he got to the apex, where he finally - finally! - pressed his lips to the skin on Neji’s swollen erection. 

_ Yes! YES!  _ Neji screamed, but only in his own head; his hand still covered his mouth and prevented all but the most muffled of sounds from escaping, and he didn’t dare make any noise for fear of waking up Sasuke. His back arched uncontrollably, pressing himself harder against Shikamaru’s face, but the ghost grabbed his hips and pressed them back into the counter to give himself more room to work. 

Neji had to concentrate on keeping his hips still as Shikamaru performed the same treatment on his cock as he had to his inner thighs a few scant minutes earlier, swirling the tip of his tongue up and down the length in a teasing pattern without applying much pressure. If he shifted just the tiniest bit, Neji knew, Shikamaru would respond by pulling away and giving him a reproachful look instead of pressing harder, as Neji desired. 

Shikamaru traced meaningless patterns up and down Neji’s thighs with his fingertips as his tongue performed the same motion over his cock, teasing him past the point of sanity. Neji’s toes curled and his fingers were starting to ache from gripping the counter so hard, and as if sensing the exact moment when he couldn't take it anymore, Shikamaru pulled away, leaving Neji to tip backwards from the edge of the precipice just before he reached it. 

He tried to call out the phantom’s name in protest, but Shikamaru reached up and pressed the hand already covering his mouth tighter over his lips, muffling the cry. 

“Easy there, tiger,” he whispered with a sly grin. “I thought you were trying to avoid waking Sasuke up?” 

Neji's breath hitched at the reminder and he tried to still himself, but his body was trembling too violently to be truly frozen. His body remained silent while his eyes fixed the phantom with a glare, communicating his ill satisfaction with the situation. 

Shikamaru muffled a laugh at the sight. “I know, I know; but don't worry. I have something better planned, just you wait.” 

_ This better be worth it _ , Neji's gaze said, and Shikamaru’s eyes crinkled up in a rare indulgent smile. 

“It will be, I promise.” 

Without wasting any more time, Shikamaru delved back down into the once-forbidden territory, pulling his lips back from his teeth so their sharp edges ran across Neji’s skin with a tickle that sent tingles straight to his groin. Instead of returning his lips to the pulsating erection between his thighs, however, Shikamaru instead went lower, pulling Neji’s legs apart even further. He wrapped Neji’s other leg over his shoulder as well, giving himself better access to - something, Neji wasn’t quite sure what, though the new position left him more off-balance than before and gripping the edge of the counter with his one available hand for a more practical reason. For a single confused moment, Neji wasn’t sure what his goal was, and then he remembered where the ghost had touched him in the shower several days previously, and his eyes widened to the point of saucers. 

Oh.  _ Oh. _

“Ooohhhh…” He groaned from behind his hand as Shikamaru’s tongue flicked almost cautiously against his entrance before pressing against it harder and with more confidence. The sound, though muffled by his hand, still rang out rather loudly into the otherwise echoey silence of the bathroom, and he flinched as it assaulted his ears, biting the pad of his palm so hard that he almost drew blood to avoid any other traitorous sounds from escaping him. 

Unlike before, no quip about the noise came from Shikamaru. Now he was entirely concentrated on his job, in turn applying and denying pressure in all the right places to make Neji squirm. Unconsciously, Neji squeezed his knees around Shikamaru’s head, locking him in place, but the phantom didn’t appear to mind; in fact, by the hum he made which sent vibrations through all the right parts of Neji, he was pleased by it. 

It was around that time that Neji realized that he was slipping, but there was nothing he could do to warn Shikamaru as he lost his grip on the edge of the counter and fell backwards, his head cracking against the mirror - and hopefully not breaking it; he’d have to check on that later. His left kidney placed itself in the exact position to be jabbed by the faucet behind him. Additionally - and this was the part Neji found himself panicking about - his butt was starting to slide off the counter, and he was sure that he was about to tumble on top Shikamaru in the most unromantic way possible, and he squeezed his eyes shut and hoped the phantom wouldn't tease him too terribly about it. 

Except it never happened. A second later, Neji’s eyes popped open again to gauge the situation around him, and he saw a writhing black shadow looped around his waist and attached to the counter, holding him in place while Shikamaru worked his magic with his mouth. The faucet was still jabbing him in the back, but now that he was stable he was able to take some of the pressure off of it and concentrate - or not concentrate, depending on how it was viewed - on more important things, like the teasing little licks Shikamaru’s tongue was giving him and the way it made his stomach feel tight and his legs go weak and jelly-jointed. 

Suddenly, Shikamaru’s hands delved underneath Neji, gripping his ass and squeezing gently, all while pulling him more securely against his mouth. Neji almost moaned aloud at the sensation again, but kept it in just in time with the heel of his palm clamped between his teeth. The shadow binding him to the counter crawled across his skin as if it was exploring Neji’s stomach as much as the teasing flicks of Shikamaru’s tongue were exploring his bottom half. 

Then the hands that had so recently grabbed fistfulls of Neji’s ass eased his cheeks apart so Shikamaru could get in closer, and he felt the thick muscle that had been drawing teasing patterns all over his skin finally find a goal and purpose, pushing against his entrance with a flexible strength. Neji had to bite down on the heel of his palm hard enough to draw metallic-tasting blood in order to muffle his shuddering moans. The sensation of Shikamaru’s tongue splitting him open and delving inside him was so alien that his body jerked, half rejecting it, but so good at the same that he almost couldn’t bear it. His skin prickled with erotic heat as shadows continued to weave across his body like wandering hands, holding him steady against the counter so he wouldn’t fall as he shuddered when Shikamaru slowly began to fuck him with his tongue. 

All the pressure in the world couldn’t have stopped the sound of Neji’s moan from echoing into the bathroom at that, but luckily his hand was able to muffle enough of it that it wouldn’t carry far beyond the closed bathroom door. Shikamaru’s grip tightened at the sound, and he started to speed up, alternating between quick thrusts of his tongue and longer ones where he stroked Neji’s inner walls with laser-like focus. 

_ He was right _ , was all Neji could think as the most erotic sensations he’d ever felt wracked his body.  _ Totally worth it.  _

Heat started to pool in his abdomen, bringing Neji back up to the ledge Shikamaru had abandoned him at the edge of before, but this time without being touched. As if sensing how close Neji was, Shikamaru moved one of his hands from its perch on Neji’s ass to grip his cock and jerked rapidly up and down in tandem with the thrusts of his tongue. 

The overload of sensation proved too much for Neji, and he came apart with a shudder, his knees clenching around Shikamaru’s head as spasms wracked his body. If he’d been breathing, he was sure that he would have screamed aloud at the sensation, but luckily he’d held his breath just before he came so he didn’t have any air left to scream. His back arching, he rode out the waves of his orgasm with the help of Shikamaru’s tongue until he dropped back, spent, against the mirror. His legs dropped from their clenched position around Shikamaru’s head, and the phantom stood up and pulled Neji into an upright position, dismissing his shadows and wiping away the evidence of their exploits with the Neji towel he had divested Neji of. 

“And how was that? Worth it?” 

_ Do I even have to answer? _ Neji asked with his eyes, and Shikamaru laughed gently, pulling Neji’s hand away from his mouth. 

“Thought so.” He leaned in for a kiss, but Neji suddenly thrust his hand in between their mouths, causing a frown to mar Shikamaru’s expression. “What is it? Did I do something wrong?” 

Shaking his head, Neji glared at Shikamaru’s mouth. “You aren’t coming anywhere near my face with that tongue. I know where it’s been.” 

For a moment, Shikamaru looked shocked, then an amused grin crept across his face and he started laughing. Shaking his head disbelievingly, he pushed Neji to the side and reached past him to a tiny travel-sized bottle of mouthwash sitting conveniently on the counter next to a bar of soap and a small tube of toothpaste, poured a little into his mouth and swished for a good thirty seconds before spitting it out in the sink. 

“Is that better?” He asked with raised eyebrows, and Neji felt a small laugh bubble up in his chest that he squashed down before it could take over his throat. 

“Much.” This time, it was Neji who leaned in for a kiss, drawing the phantom toward him and gripping the back of his neck so he couldn’t pull away. 

Abruptly, tears of frustration started to pool in Neji’s eyes, and he tightened his grip. It wasn’t fair that this could feel so good! It shouldn’t make him crave more, so he could move on like he was supposed to and forget about Shikamaru and his warm kisses and his soft hands and his strong arms and his magic tongue and his… 

Okay, this was getting counterproductive. But still, Neji felt the frustration start to eat away at his insides. He should have never said yes to Shikamaru in the first place, should have never allowed himself to get addicted to the feel of skin on skin and the comfort of a pair of muscular arms to hold him. Because, even if he managed to break off the engagement between himself and Hinata - which the chances of were almost nonexistent now - that wasn’t where his life was going. 

Shikamaru, suddenly feeling the wetness on Neji’s cheeks from his tears, pulled back and laid a comforting hand on his jaw. “What is it?” He whispered, though the expression in his eyes told Neji that he already knew what he was going to say. 

He decided to say it anyway. “I shouldn’t have done that.” 

“Why? You wanted to.” 

“Then I shouldn’t have wanted to.” 

“Don’t say that.” 

“But it’s true.” Neji ran a hand through the hair that was starting to droop over his face, finger-combing it into some semblance of order. It was almost dry from his shower now, but not quite. “I don’t have the right to want something I can’t have.” 

Shikamaru’s eyes were dark. “And why is that?” 

“Because the more I want it, the more it will hurt you.” 

The phantom stilled at the words. “How do you figure that?” 

Neji looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “I can’t…  _ have _ you, Shikamaru; it was never an option for me. I never thought… I never thought that this would go as far as it did when we started. I thought that you’d hang around for a few weeks, then get bored and go somewhere else, and I’d be left with the memories of a fling that I could always hold onto when I was doing what I was always meant to do. But this has gone beyond that now, for both of us, I think.” 

“And so you think the longer you let this go on, the harder it will be to say goodbye?” 

Swallowing down a sudden lump in his throat, Neji said quietly, “I know it will.” 

“Bullshit.” Shikamaru pulled Neji back toward him and rested their foreheads together, staring deep into his eyes. “You’re assuming things. We don’t have to say goodbye.” 

“Yes, we do, Shikamaru; weren’t you listening? I’ll be getting  _ married _ in a year and a half, and I’m not the type of person to keep someone on the side.” He swallowed against his dry mouth. “Not even… not even you.” 

“You’re assuming things again. You might not get married.” 

Neji gritted his teeth. “That isn’t an option, Shikamaru. My family has ordered me to.” 

“So just tell them no,” the phantom said with his head cocked to the side like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

“You don’t think I haven’t already tried that? The last time I did, they moved the date of the wedding two years closer!” Neji abruptly sighed and pushed Shikamaru away. “Just go, Shikamaru. Go back to Konoha where you belong. Everyone there must miss you. I can take care of myself.” 

The phantom tapped a finger against his jaw for a second as if considering it, then he shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think I will. After all, I never really belonged in Konoha to begin with. I was just better tolerated there than most places.” 

“Shikamaru-” 

“No, I think it’s my turn to talk now,” the ghost announced. “Neji, I am the laziest person I know. I don’t like talking, excess movement, or getting pulled into things that don’t concern me. And yet, I am here, with you, right now, because I want to be. Now, working in the army, I’ve learned a thing or two about tactics, and the most important thing I learned is that there is always a way out of every problem you face.” 

“Not this one,” Neji interjected, but Shikamaru placed a finger in front of his mouth. 

“Hush. It’s my turn now. As I was saying, there is always a way past every obstacle you can find, if you only look hard enough. Sometimes, it may require sacrifice, sometimes pure dumb luck. The odds may be a million to one, but there is always at least one chance.” His thumb ghosted across the surface of Neji’s cheekbones. “And I’ve gotten very good at finding that one chance and following the twisted path until I reach the end. So let me try, Neji. At least let me try.” 

But Neji was already shaking his head. “I can’t tell you the secrets of my family, Shikamaru, you know that. And it wouldn’t matter if I did, anyway. I’ve been trying for three years to make the elders back down; I doubt you could accomplish much in a month.” 

“A month?” Shikamaru caught the word, and his eyes narrowed. “Why a month? You said you were getting married in a year and a half.” 

Hesitating, Neji admitted, “A month is… when the marriage will be announced to the rest of the family. Once that’s happened, there will be no taking it back. Ever.” 

“A month…” Shikamaru’s face screwed up in contemplation, then he slowly nodded. “I can work with a month.” 

“Now you’re just showing off.” 

“No, me shoving my tongue up your ass was showing off.” A squawk of indignation jerked out of Neji at the abrupt harsh words, but Shikamaru ran over his complaint with narrowed eyes. “This is me proving to you that I don’t want to let you go.” 

Neji couldn’t deny that the words made his heart beat a little faster, but he ignored it and turned his head to the side, brushing off the hand laying on his cheek as he did. “It’s not that easy, Shikamaru. There are only so many impossibilities a man can overcome in his life.” 

“Then what’s one more?” 

“Shikamaru…”

“Put it this way,” Shikamaru interrupted. “To you, it’s impossible that you’ll break out of your engagement. To me, it’s impossible that I’ll let you get married to someone else. That sounds like two conflicting impossibilities, doesn’t it? And what happens when two conflicting impossibilities come head to head?” 

“I suppose one of them has to give,” Neji admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it will be yours that comes out on top; you know that, right?” 

“But it doesn’t mean that it won’t, does it?” 

Neji threw his hands into the air. “You’re impossible!” 

“It’s a damn sight better than being boring, though, isn’t it?” 

“You wish.” 

“Now you’re the one being stubborn.” Shikamaru kissed the tip of Neji’s nose teasingly and wrapped his arms around him. “Tell me something, Neji: right now, what is the one thing you would want to say to me the most, if you didn’t have to worry about your family or your betrothal?” 

The truthful answer to the question immediately jumped into Neji’s mind, but his cheeks colored at the innuendo they contained and he shook his head. Shikamaru was clearly waiting, though, and providing very good motivation in the form of large, dark eyes like those of a kitten, so he eventually gave up and hunched his shoulders as he spoke. 

“I would say… I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could reciprocate now, is there?” 

A wide grin swept across Shikamaru’s face, and he immediately pulled Neji in for a quick kiss. “Not yet,” he promised, “but soon. Very soon.” 

“I didn’t say that I would actually do it, Shikamaru, I just said-” 

“That you wanted it,” Shikamaru finished for him. “But it sounds to me like you just admitted to wanting an impossibility. And if I know anything about impossibilities, it’s that when two impossible things fight against a third, the lone impossible wish is more likely to fail.” 

Neji shook his head in disbelief. “I can not believe you.” 

Shikamaru flashed a hint of white teeth in a grin. “Does that mean I’ve convinced you to at least try?” 

Neji suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion roll over him. Today was just not a good day to be doing this; he was tired, annoyed at Sasuke, angry at his family, worried about Hinata, and scared of the wraiths he was supposed to be hunting down. He needed sleep, and he let his shoulders slip down into a hunch as he realized he didn’t have the energy to fight off Shikamaru’s logic any longer. 

“Look, Shikamaru,” he said, resting a hand on the phantom’s chest to push them a little further apart and keep the other at bay. “I don’t have the time or energy to be doing this right now. So just… let me think on it while I do my job here, please? It’s not a yes,” he quickly interjected when Shikamaru went to speak, “but it’s not a no, either. What do you say?” 

The phantom’s brow furrowed as he thought on it, then he finally nodded. “Fine. But don’t expect me to just sit back and let you accept a marriage you don’t want just because someone else told you to.” 

Neji fought off the urge to sigh. It wasn’t really like that, but he didn’t have the energy left to correct Shikamaru and risk another round of whatever verbal game they had been playing. “Close enough. Now let me get some sleep, you insatiable beast.” 

“Your wish is my command, O Fairy King.” Without warning, Shikamaru picked Neji up off the counter and carried him to the bathroom door, which opened before him without any visible sign of effort from the phantom. 

Neji wanted to help at the action, but the door was already open and he didn’t want to wake up Sasuke so he settled for a quiet hiss. “Shikamaru! What are you doing?!” 

“Helping you get some sleep.” Shikamaru gently deposited him on the empty bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. “There. Better?” 

“It’s too hot,” Neji complained, though the blankets did feel nice and he snuggled down into them. A yawn split his features, and he had to fight to keep his eyes open now that he’d finally allowed his head to rest against his pillow. 

“Shhhh….” Shikamaru leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on Neji’s forehead. “Sleep now, my little fairy boy.” 

Neji didn’t have the strength to disobey him. 

 


End file.
